


Growing Pains

by Lilly_White



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Aeris vs. girlhood in the slums, Espionage, Multi, Tseng vs. having to handle a girl growing up in the slums, hold onto your butts it's all hurt/comfort until then lol, later officer-agent sort of relationship, smut will appear at like... chapter 17 i think, the story will span several years
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:20:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 44,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27227224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilly_White/pseuds/Lilly_White
Summary: Tseng’s years as Aeris’s handler give them both a lot of trouble, evolving from muddy complicated feelings to emotional codependency. While they circle one another, memories from Wutai return, Nibelheim burns, Avalanche rises, and they both try to figure out where they stand amidst it all.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Tseng, Tifa Lockhart/Barret Wallace
Comments: 94
Kudos: 35





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Tserith is a complicated pairing, and tbh it's interesting to me /because/ it's complicated. I've tried to write as honestly and openly as I can, as always. The subjects broached in this fic may make some readers uncomfortable, so please proceed with caution. There'll be no underage sexual content, just Complicated Feelings which are one of the main reasons this fic has been sitting in the back of my brain for years.

\- - -

_Wutai_

_[ memories ]_

\- - -

Blood coated the dining room table.

Two bodies sat slumped in the chairs. They wore immaculately cleaned and pressed linen shirts, the man’s mint green, the woman’s white with embroidered Wutain apricot flowers. The symbol of loyalty and a pure heart – that’s what she had told him once.

Foreheads rested peacefully against the table. Skulls gaped open, dark craters of hair, blood and brains.

On the far wall of the dining room, right between the two traditional Kisaragi-style vases, a stark red ideogram stained the wallpaper. Bloody lines glared into Tseng’s eyes, screaming one word:

_TRAITORS_

Tseng held onto the doorframe as he stared at his parents. He had a backpack on his shoulder, the one his mother had packed for him with extra red-paste pancakes for the journey. He was meant to have left. He wasn’t meant to come back.

He couldn’t move his feet.

“Hey! There’s another one!”

Tseng’s head jerked to the side. Tall shadows detached from the open corridors. 

His feet ripped away from the ground. He was hurtling through his house, panting like a wild animal when before he could hardly breathe at all. The shadows took chase, clawed at his heels, yelled into the deathly silence.

The back door slammed after Tseng’s exit, flimsy wood splintering when the shadows kicked through it.

\- - -

ShinRa soldiers were waiting for him at the outpost.

He was a gangly teenager, fresh from one last growth spurt. Long hair tied into a bun, shoulders wide from his work at his uncle’s farm. Promising. Youths like him were often versatile when it came to labour – work on the family farm, fishing, load-bearing – even as young as he was, he already sported impressive physical capacities. Seeing who his parents had been, the outpost officer had no doubt that Tseng would also develop excellent intellectual capacities with a little training

The outpost officer sat Tseng down in his office. Tseng stared wide-eyed, panting and rasping like his lungs were made of crumpled paper. 

“Missed the bus, did you?” said the officer.

Tseng couldn’t reply.

The officer walked around his new protégé, observing him from different angles. “I’m Officer Lee. I trust your parents told you what we’re going to do for you?”

Still no answer.

“There’s an aircraft leaving tonight. You’ll be onboard, accompanied by one of our Turk trainees. In the meantime you should have a bite to eat. It’s a long journey.” 

He reached for the food carton he’d prepared on his desk, but the young Wutain bent over, thrusting his face into his shaking hands. He couldn’t get his breathing to stabilize. He was starting to hyperventilate.

The two Peacekeepers manning Lee’s door started forwards, but Lee stopped them with a gesture.

“Give him space,” he said. Slowly, non-threateningly, he crouched at Tseng’s side. “Did something happen?”

“They’re – they’re – ”

Tseng tried to explain, but his words were a conglomerate of grief and horror, barely intelligible. Lee could very well imagine what had happened. The boy’s parents had been badly compromised. Why they decided to save their children but not themselves was anyone’s guess. Wutains had a deep sense of filial duty and sacrifice that he’d given up trying to understand.

He rubbed the boy’s shoulder. “It’s all right, lad. It’ll be all right.”

\- - -

“Sit down, Tseng. We have something to tell you.”

His parents were remarkably calm that morning. His mother had brewed tea. He watched her place their cast-iron teapot on the slate that marked the centre of the table. His father sat, cup between his hands, smiling kindly at his son. 

Something was strange. His parents didn’t usually ask him to sit down for a talk. And there was a backpack at the foot of his chair which was full of his clothes, his books, enough food to last several days.

He sat silently, staring at his parents, somehow knowing that they were about to say goodbye.

“There are things about the revolutionary party that we need to explain to you,” his mother began gently as she poured tea into a cup for him.

The party had occupied his teenage years more intensely than anything. He knew his parents were involved at a far deeper level that they let on. He’d helped his parents at several occasions to organise meetings, dinners, marches. He’d run with his cousins and uncles through the streets of neighbouring towns, wearing a scarf around his face, chucking lit beer bottles at imperial soldiers. 

“Emperor Kisaragi is running this country into the ground,” his father said. “He drags us all into his personal war with ShinRa, regardless of whether we agree with his rejection of all things Eastern.”

“I know how you feel about the Emperor,” Tseng said with a nod. “That he has the arrogance to hold onto his title and claim its sanctity after everything that’s happened – it’s sickening.”

His father glowed at his son’s words. Tseng sat straighter in his chair at the sight of his father’s approval.

His mother came around the table, placed a hand on his shoulder.

“You’ve grown up so much,” she said softly. “We’re very proud of you, you know that?”

Again, the impression that this was goodbye robbed him of a response.

“Our involvement with the party was noticed,” his father said slowly. “We know this might be… hard to hear for you. But we vowed to tell you if things ever turned sour. You have a right to know.”

Tseng waited.

“The revolutionary party has been working with ShinRa,” his mother said. “We’ve been collecting information for them. Letting them know the party plans. They’ve helped to fund our efforts.”

His parents allowed a small silence for him to take this in.

“I thought… I thought the party aimed for a reformation of Wutai,” he said, frowning. “Rebuilding from the ground up. Not building another Midgar on Wutain soil.”

“That isn’t their goal,” his father countered. “ShinRa agrees with our ideas of reform. Their end-game isn’t to dictate our actions. Their cooperation is ideological. They share fundamental principles with us. Freedom, scientific advancement, plenty. Never going hungry. Never being flattened into submission by one man’s laws.”

This conversation felt fragile. Like handling glass. Tseng stared into his father’s eyes, let his mother’s hand weigh heavy on his shoulder. If his parents were saying this, then they must know more than him – they must’ve weighed their options very carefully.

“Are you in danger?” Tseng asked.

His father shared a glance with his mother, then smiled at him again, that large reassuring smile that pleated his eyes. “No, of course not,” he said. “But it’s difficult, meticulous work. Sometimes the missions involve a certain level of risk.”

“Which is why ShinRa has an exit strategy prepared for us,” his mother put in.

Tseng looked between his parents. Those kind smiles were more unnerving than anything. 

“We aren’t in any kind of danger right now, but we want to take precautions for you and Shiori,” said his father. “Just in case. You’ll spend the next few weeks in Midgar until the situation stabilizes.”

Midgar. Tseng’s mouth went dry as he imagined the city, the photos he’d seen of it. Glass skyscrapers, roads choked with people, supermarkets full to burst of everything anyone would ever need and much, much more. The utter decadence of it had always fascinated him.

But his excitement was quickly dulled.

_We want to take precautions._

“It’s just for a few weeks,” his mother insisted. “It’ll be like a holiday.”

“You’re sending us to Midgar, but you’re staying here?”

“Shiori’s going elsewhere,” his father corrected. “We’ve already sent her off.”

Tseng bit back the automatic response: _you lied to me, you told me she’d gone to sleep at Uncle’s place last night._ There was a reason for the lie, surely. His parents always had a good reason for what they did. Still, he had to know: “Where?”

“You’ll be seeing her soon enough. Better that things stay vague for the time being.”

By now Tseng’s heart was racing. His mother squeezed his shoulders, slicked back his long hair as she had always done.

“Everything will be all right,” she promised him. “You’ll take the midday bus to Greenhill, then it’s a short hike to the ShinRa outpost. There should be Peacekeepers to escort you.”

“But – the bus is in barely half an hour, what about my things - ”

With another of those kind smiles, his father patted the backpack at his feet.

“It’s all here for you.”

\- - -


	2. Chapter 2

\- - -

_Junon_

_[ present ]_

_\- - -_

Tseng sits up straight in the comfortable blue-velvet sofa. On the other side of the coffee table sits a man wearing an immaculately styled wig, contacts, and advanced cosmetics hiding the stitched-up gash in his cheek. 

He’s not supposed to seek out Veld unless it’s an emergency. He’s supposed to protect the old Director’s identity and location. But Veld makes himself available when needed, bouncing around from place to place, identity to identity. The mantle of Director is a heavy thing to shoulder for a young Turk like Tseng. When he makes a distress call, Veld answers it without question.

Tseng’s fingers are hooked together, knuckles strained white. He’s staring at the coffee table, trying to find a way to begin. 

“The boy acting up again, is he?” Veld encourages him. 

Tseng shakes his head. “This isn’t about Rufus.” 

“Ah.” Veld gives a cognizant nod. “It’s the girl, then.”

Tseng breathes in slowly, then sighs. It’s something he does every time he’s about to admit something very unprofessional. Veld shuffles forward, pours him some saké, gives him time. 

“You’ve been on her for… how long now?” Veld asks. “It seems like it’s been forever. Aren’t they any closer to finding their Promised Land budget?”

“They’re waiting for the Wutai war to be over,” Tseng says, making Veld snort.

“Before that they were waiting for the Midgar reactors to be erected, and before that they were too busy funding project S… Shinra Senior doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.”

“Can’t disagree there.”

“Well, how is she?”

Tseng falters. Veld watches his face closely, trying to imagine the Cetra girl as a young woman. There’s a lot that Veld doesn’t know about her as he isn’t privy to the department’s operations any more. Back when he was Director, Aeris was still living the labs. He was the one who noticed the affinity Tseng had for her – the young Turk trainee would pretend to be out on assignment, gathering information, but he’d always been drawn to those other kids who had been dragged to Midgar, the ones who didn’t belong there. Back then Tseng had to be watched just as closely as Aeris did, seeing his past, and Veld had noticed the easy kinship that blossomed between him and the others who bunked at the ShinRa HQ’s communal quarters. Tseng was quicker than any to prove his loyalty to ShinRa and implement company policy, but he needed companionship just like any other displaced kid would.

Tseng was eighteen and Aeris about ten, when all hell broke loose and Veld was forced to resign. There was no one better suited to the role of Director than Tseng – no one as quick-witted and emotionally stable, no one with as much promise and company loyalty. But he was too young, younger even than the Turks who’d stayed on. Veld decided he’d just have to grow into the role. 

Tseng would report to him after he exiled himself. There were many growing pains for such a young Director. When Aeris and Ifalna had broken out of the labs, Veld had to talk him down from the panic it put him in. Ifalna was dead; ShinRa wanted absolute control over Aeris’s movements as a result. They threatened to lock her up in abysmal conditions. But she couldn’t live cooped up in a lab, Tseng insisted. It was inhumane. With an appropriate amount of pressure and blackmail, they had solved the conundrum and persuaded Shinra Senior to let her live down below. And Tseng – at the tender age of eighteen – had taken on the role of handler for the escapee.

He’s twenty-two now, though the mantle of Director seems have stretched out the years, giving him the gravitas of an older man. He’s still just as solid as before, Veld can see it in the way he holds himself. But even a rock can crackle and erode under pressure. 

“It’s a unique assignment,” Veld tells him. “Whatever it is you think you’ve done, you’re a decent man, Tseng. I know you’re handling it as best you can. There’s no rulebook for this.”

Tseng watches the surface of the sake rippling in the red ceramic cup. The liquid shimmers wetly like the lipgloss she’s taken to wearing. He pictures her plump shiny mouth, clumpy eyeliner around the eyes, stretchy plastic choker around her throat. Those revealing dresses she almost certainly cuts herself. Their colours are always patchy from the cheap corner-shop powder, but she hems and stitches them so that not a single curve of her body is left to the imagination. 

_Does your mother approve of you going around Wallmarket like that?_

_I’m old enough to make my own decisions._

“She turned fourteen last month,” Tseng attempts. 

Veld nods. 

“She’s become a very… complex person,” Tseng goes on, encouraged by his old Director’s intent silence. “She keeps all kinds of company - Wutain expats, gangs, junk scrappers. When she was younger she would open up to me a lot more about them, what she discovered about the slums, the different people who live down there. But now it’s like she cherry-picks what information to give me.” Tseng shakes his head, trying to keep from smiling. “Sometimes I think she might be trying to play me.”

Veld tilts his head. “What makes you say that?”

Tseng’s gaze blurs as the scene takes over his mind. A sunless Saturday afternoon in the Upperworld botanical park, fronds of ferns framing sandy pathways. He takes her there every other weekend, has done so ever since the Board agreed to put her in his care. She wore her hair in a ponytail, a too-big denim jacket sitting squarely on her shoulders to give an impression of size. She likes to do that now - accessorize, hide how young she is. She held candyfloss on a stick, twirled it between polish-tipped fingers as they walked. Her arm wrapped around his, her body heat pressed up against his plainclothes jacket. With him dressed down and her dressed up, anybody might’ve mistaken them for freshmen sweethearts.

Between two bites of candyfloss, she’d feed him intel that always baffled him; Rufus-era Avalanche drama, murmurs of murder, gang-related activity that nobody except those directly involved could know. He would reciprocate by giving her checks, train tickets, job opportunities, promises of house upgrades for Elmyra. On the surface, their conversations held notes of familiarity and even laughter, so one might easily think their conversations were authentic. But underneath always lay the hyperawareness. _Don’t say too much. Say just enough to get what you want._

It wasn’t like that before, back when there was no contract between them, back when the lab assistants took Ifalna and left Aeris wandering the living facilities that ShinRa’s collection of orphaned wards and freshly pardoned Turk trainees shared. There had been more honesty, more careless revealing of one another’s deeper thoughts. She had a child’s curiosity then - she didn’t seek to turn knowledge into power. Then once she lived in the slums, she slowly changed, grew up, grew uncomfortable with him and every other man who laid eyes on her. She hid her deeper thoughts, grew warier. Elmyra had some hand in that, persuading her not to trust the men in the blue suits, or any man at all - it was only natural. Tseng had anticipated it and distanced himself accordingly. 

But there came a point where, like many slum girls, she decided to embrace the budding maturity of her appearance. Use her vulnerabilities to her own benefit. Dare her onlookers to take another look. It was defiance, an adrenaline rush surely, a way to cope. But she was always brimming with fire nowadays, so he took special care to keep it contained, her quick wit capable of leading them down very dangerous paths. He knew that she could sense his discomfort, his acknowledgement of her changing appearance, and she played with him mercilessly. For the past year or so he’d taken it as an extra protocol to apply. _Distance, always. Keep the distance intact._

But that day... she had closed the distance like a slamming door, and left him reeling. 

“It’s a complicated time for both of us,” Tseng says at length. “She keeps pushing the limits, trying to see what she can gain from destabilizing me. She knows me too well. And while I don’t… particularly want to pass on this contract to someone else, I’m wondering if it wouldn’t be necessary at this point. It might be time for me to let her go to someone else. Perhaps a woman who might guide her better than I could.”

_Time to let her go._

His jaw clenches. The inky fall of his hair hides the muscle strand that pops out.

Veld puts down his saké with a clink of ceramics, then lights himself a cigarette. “I understand. Sometimes it’s best to give wards new handlers instead of letting inappropriate attachments fester.”

“She’s not just any other ward, though,” Tseng says. “ShinRa is very particular about her. She has needs that Hojo insists we fulfill and document. That kind of constant observation… it requires a certain closeness. Emotional and intellectual.” Veld offers him a cigarette. He takes it, frowns down at it. “She doesn’t have many people she’s close to. She tries to come across as a normal girl to everyone she meets. I’m worried that if I sever the link, she’ll only have superficial relationships, including with her new handler. I don’t want to make any decisions that might deepen her distress rather than soothe it.”

“Mm. I remember what Hojo used to say about that,” Veld says, crooking an eyebrow. “ _We don’t want her mental or physical state to deteriorate. The more unstable she is, the more likely she is to damage herself. Can’t let that happen._ ” 

Tseng shakes his head. “Hojo.” 

“What I always wondered is, if they want her to be mentally stable, then why in Gaia’s name would they still confine her to the slums? Surely she’s proven herself to be trustworthy enough now to have earned an Upperworld living arrangement.”

Tseng takes a deep drag. “It’s to limit her ability to escape,” he says. “She’s resourceful. Dangerously so. When you hear about the criminals she calls friends, you’re glad for the walls that keep her locked in. I have no doubt that if we give her a wider rein, she’d run wild at the first opportunity.” 

Veld expels a chalky cloud from his lungs, sits back in his own comfortable velvet armchair.

“So, what did you come and see me for?” he asks. “You want me to tell you what to do?”

Tseng smiles an auto-derisive smile. “I suppose I panicked. Laying it out now, the answer seems obvious.”

“Yes. You have to give her up,” Veld agrees. “Better for you. Better for her. It might be hard for her at first, but the sooner she starts nourishing deep relationships with people who aren’t her handlers, the sooner she’ll stop relying on you altogether.”

Tseng stares at the ceramic cups sitting on the coffee table. He doesn’t know how to articulate how wrong Veld is about her, how impossible the notion of _deep relationships_ are in her world. How desperately she wants to come across as a citizen of Midgar, a slummer just like all the rest. One of the crowd. Someone likeable, predictable, a girl whose name brings a smile to people’s lips. A carefully constructed relatable character, from the lip gloss to the scuffed knees. An impression of delicacy that persuades gruff slummers to stand at street corners and watch for the spooks in suits. 

Not a strange creature with freakish magical proficiency. Not the last of her kind. Not an angry orphan who lights candles every January 16th and sits by her flowerbed to mourn the body beneath it, cradled in the packed earth.

Tseng blinks away the image of Ifalna, white-faced, dandelion roots tangled around her fingers. 

“You’re right,” he says. “I’ll delegate the responsibility.”

“You mentioned a woman? Have you had new recruits?” 

“We had some good people pass their trials this year. There’s one I have in mind, but she’s still somewhat green around the edges.” 

“Are you sure this can't go to one of your best men? Reno?” Veld suggests. 

Tseng can’t help but laugh. “Gaia, no. It’s a sensitive assignment - he’s far too chaotic for it.”

“Rude, then.”

“He’s not much more suitable. Too formal, too… by-the-books.”

Veld is smiling. “Any other ideas? I know your workforce isn’t what it was back when I was Director. You don’t exactly have much choice.”

Tseng thinks, and Veld’s smile only widens as the silence endures. 

“The point is to remove yourself as her emotional crutch,” Veld reminds him. “A formal relationship might be appropriate.”

He’s being surprisingly succinct. Tseng knows that his behaviour is transparent. He’s being possessive. Jealous. Like he’s some green upstart who’s upset about losing his first contract to someone better qualified for it.

“I’ll think about it,” Tseng says. 

“You’ll think about it, and you’ll do it,” Veld corrects. “Do it before you come to me again with a bigger mess to clear up.”

Old habit makes the Director of the Turks bow his head to this plainclothes civilian and say, “Yes, sir.” 

\- - -


	3. Chapter 3

**\- - -**

_Midgar, ShinRa HQ_

_[ memories ]_

_\- - -_

“Mum,” Aeris whispered. “Who’s that boy?”

Ifalna drifted around the kitchen area of the common room, Aeris clinging to her leg. Both were looking at the boy with the long black hair who was sitting at the furthest table, staring out of the floor-to-ceiling windows.

He hadn’t turned any of the lights on. He was sitting there, as he had many nights previously, with his head in his hands and a bottle in front of him. Lights from down below slid in blue stripes along his hands, his bare forearms, the smudged alcohol on the tabletop. 

He looked young. From what Ifalna had seen of him, he couldn’t be much older than the other Turk trainees. Most were scraped off the streets or out of juvie around the age of thirteen or fourteen.

This one… he was very quiet compared to the others. He was the only Wutain among the young trainees she shared this common room with. He didn’t seem to follow the same regimen as the others, either – he would get escorted out of Floor 65 more often, and by Veld himself sometimes. His aptitude with the common tongue wasn’t very good yet – but Ifalna guessed language classes weren’t the only thing that took up his time, seeing how strained and haggard he always looked. Surely ShinRa provided care for these troubled youngsters they dragged into their employ. 

“He’s training to be in the Turks,” Ifalna told Aeris quietly. The boy could probably hear them; it was quiet enough in the common room to hear the buzz of the refrigerators and the rowdy conversations from the sleeping quarters upstairs. “Just like the others.”

“Why is he by himself?”

“Well,” Ifalna said, and she smiled down at her small daughter. Aeris’s wide green eyes blinked up at her, full of eager curiosity. “He must be very tired after his trip.”

“Trip? He was on a trip?”

“Yes.”

“Like us?”

“Yes. Just like us.”

Aeris helped her mother take out ingredients from the cupboards and fridges, switching tack and asking what they were eating. Ifalna busied herself with preparing the pots and pans, explaining everything as usual. But the boy hadn’t left either of their minds. Every now and then they heard a clink of glass, a sigh, a shuffling of feet.

Worried, Ifalna glanced over at him again. “Here,” she murmured to Aeris. “Why don’t you go and ask him if he’s hungry?”

Only too eager to have been given a mission, Aeris walked confidently away between the tables, making a bee-line for the Wutain boy. Ifalna couldn’t help smiling, pride and heartache filling her chest. She was doing the best she could in this environment to raise Aeris – and her daughter never ceased to amaze her with how headstrong and sociable she was, even at six years old.

The Wutain boy saw her coming and jerked out of his hunched posture. He sat up straighter, drawing the bottle to him, looking somewhat ashamed of himself.

“Hello, I’m Aeris,” Aeris declared. “My mum asked if you were hungry? Do you want to eat with us? We’re making rice with leek food.”

Ifalna laughed. “Fondue. Leek fondue.”

“Fon- _doo_ ,” Aeris repeated with a frown of concentration. “It’s when you cook leek in water, and you put salt, and then you boil it until all the water has gone into the leek, and then it’s all mushy so you fry it with butter and onions – ”

The Wutain boy looked between them as Aeris went on explaining in excruciating detail. Ifalna smiled apologetically at him. She pointed at the pot of rice she was holding, asking implicitly if she should add enough for three.

“Thank you,” the Wutain boy said once Aeris had run out of steam. He nodded at them both, one after the other. “Yes. I would like that.”

Blue lights shone over his face. His eyes were dark and rimmed with a tell-tale shine. Ifalna’s heart clenched at the sight of him. He was so young. What had he been through? What had ShinRa planned for him?

Turning back to the counter, she scooped out two extra handfuls of rice and chucked them in the pot.

\- - -

Floor 64 and 65 of the ShinRa headquarters served as communal living quarters for two kinds of people. Lab rats and Turk trainees. Both were only allowed limited movement, both had been dragged there without much consent, and both were involved in ShinRa’s most guarded secrets.

They both held cardkeys for their respective dormitories. During the day, the trainees moved around quite freely, alternating between meals, parties, the rec room and their Turk officers coming to pick them up. The common room was widely considered their territory during the daytime. When evening fell, the lab rats came out.

There weren’t many of them who were allowed this type of limited autonomy. Seeing the history they had with Hojo, Ifalna suspected that it was a privilege extended to very few of his specimens. There were several quiet adults and one young child, Sephiroth, the silver-haired boy that Gast had loved so much. Ifalna felt a pinch in her chest every time she saw him. When he and Aeris spoke together, Ifalna would think of all that could’ve been – only to sit there and be faced once again by the reality they had been forced into.

There weren’t many socialising options for Aeris. The trainees were all rowdy delinquents for the most part, and the lab rats… she preferred that Aeris didn’t ask them too many questions. Sephiroth was nice enough to her, but Ifalna knew he had been conceived for a specific purpose, knew that ShinRa was already training him to be an emotionless weapon. It was painful, knowing she could barely impact his life now, knowing she could do nothing to protect him from Hojo. Even now, when they ate together or spoke together, he chilled her with his matter-of-fact way of speaking about unspeakable things. Many times she would cover Aeris’s ears and tell Sephiroth, _don’t say that again._

As for the trainees, they seemed to find Aeris cute and were quite ready to adopt her as their mascot. But Ifalna would’ve like Aeris to have better examples to learn from. Ones who didn’t swear and smoke and drink so much, for one.

She knew they weren’t in a position to be picky. But still.

Tseng quickly became her favourite among them. He was quiet, he didn’t curse, and he knew how to talk to Aeris on her own level. They could rattle on for hours while Ifalna prepared meals and baked cakes and generally loitered in the one recreational place they had. Tseng’s common tongue was getting much better now, too. She listened in on them, curious to hear the boy’s story herself, but mostly intent on stopping Aeris as soon as the girl’s curiosity got away with her.

_What’s it like in Wutai?_

_It’s very green. Much more green than here._

_Where did you live?_

_My parents had a small house in a town, but I mainly worked at my uncle’s farm._

_You worked on a farm? Did you have animals?_

_My uncle did, yes. Rabbits, chickens, horses, cows. I had another uncle who worked as a logger, so that’s what the horses were used for._

_You had rabbits! Oh, I’ve seen rabbits! There are rabbits in the labs._

_Are there?_

_Yes, white rabbits. They’re in cages. Doctor Smith says they’re helping to test medicine. She lets me hold them sometimes. Did you use your rabbits to test medicine?_

_Ah… no. We ate them._

_You – you ate your rabbits?  
_

_Oh, well – oh no, don’t cry, they were very old and lived a nice long life –_

Ifalna would swoop in for Aeris’s sake too, sometimes. But usually Tseng had it well in hand. Ifalna couldn’t blame him for saying things that a normal child would already know – he probably didn’t have much experience speaking to a girl who had grown up in an entirely closed and sterile environment. Ifalna did what she could with the materials she was given, but it was difficult, exhausting work, trying to teach Aeris about things she had never seen or held in her hands, trying to make do with videos and picture books and drawings.

Sometimes when Aeris slept through the evening after a very long day under Hojo’s scrutiny, Ifalna met Tseng in the common room and talked with him herself. She was mainly concerned about whether he was getting appropriate care. The Wutai war was growing ugly, and it couldn’t be easy for him to hear the news. She wondered about his parents, his true past, why he was so sad. But she never asked outright.

Eventually he told them himself. 

The HQ had recently installed an outdoor sports court on Floor 65, just outside the rec room. It had high gridded fences so that no one could fall out – and it had an amazing plunging view of Midgar. They’d finished it knowing that it was best for their recruits to get some direct sunlight while they exercised.

The lab specimens didn’t have cardkey access to it, so Tseng brought them out there. Ifalna was over the moon about it. Finally, a place without a ceiling! She and Aeris spent summer nights out there snuggled up in blankets, staring up at the stars. It opened a whole new palette of learning experiences for Aeris – the sky, the stars, clouds, the feeling of the wind. Tseng came out with them sometimes and tried to teach the Wutain names of the constellations to Aeris.

_That one there. The rectangle with a tail. What do you call it?_

_Lyra! It’s like a harp._

_We call it the Koto. Also a type of harp. Kind of._

_The Kawtaw._

_Yes. And that one? The big arc-like one?_

_Oh… I don’t know that one. Mum?_

_That one’s the Sculptor._

_Oh. Yes. Same as us then. The Choukokushitsu._

_What?_ Giggles. _What? Choku- chokokashoo._

_Nearly there._

_Chocolate-shoe!_

_Ha! You almost got it._

It was sweet. Ifalna listened to them, marvelling at the idea that she could be here, a prisoner of ShinRa, and yet still be capable of small bursts of happiness. She would lay there with her arms cradling her head, thankful that Aeris was too young to fully comprehend their situation, and that she could enjoy these types of moments to the fullest.

Then one night Aeris asked how Tseng knew so much about stars, and the conversation took a sharp turn.

“My mother taught me,” Tseng said. “She tracked the movements of the planets and saw meaning in them. She took me and my sister out to look at them in the summer.”

“You have a sister?” Aeris asked. “Where is she?”

“Aeris,” Ifalna murmured in a warning. It was the first time Tseng broached the subject of his family in so much detail. Ifalna was filled with icy alertness, hoping Aeris wouldn’t say the wrong thing.

“My sister lives somewhere faraway,” Tseng said, his voice quiet. Controlled. “I don’t know where. We were separated.”

“Why? Why can’t you live with your parents?”

“Aeris, that’s enough,” Ifalna said.

“But I want to know – ”

“No, Aeris – remember what we talked about. Everyone has their own secret garden. You don’t have the right to go asking questions about everything.”

Tseng was slouching in the covers, a bottle of tonic in hand, eyes up on the stars. He seemed quite in control of himself when he spoke to Aeris, but the fact that Ifalna had reacted so severely to the topic seemed to have triggered the distress he had been carefully keeping at bay.

He sat up straighter, breathing more shallow breaths. His dark eyes darted away from them, as though he were ashamed of himself for bringing it up.

“Tseng,” Ifalna said, kicking herself for her tactlessness. “Tseng, I’m sorry – if you want to talk about it – ”

He put down his bottle and stared at a fixed point in space, his breaths coming shorter now. Ifalna rose up next to him to rub him on the back. He was shivering. Panting.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“No,” Ifalna argued, draping her arm around him. “No, it’s fine. It’s all right.”

Aeris sat there, wide-eyed and silent as Tseng breathed through the onslaught of the panic attack. Ifalna stayed close to him, rubbing his back, telling him it would all be OK, it would pass, he should breathe on the count of three. Eventually the tension broke into tears, and Ifalna bore him through it, staying close to him. He held onto her forearms with shaking hands.

Aeris crawled up to them. She saw the trainee boys cry sometimes, but it was rare – and this was _Tseng_. He was usually so calm and poised. It scared her to see him break.

“They died,” he murmured into Ifalna’s hair. “They worked with ShinRa, gathering intelligence to overthrow the Emperor. They were killed by Kisaragi loyalists.” 

“Oh, darling. I’m so sorry.”

Aeris didn’t know what a Kisaragi loyalist was, but she understood at least that Tseng’s parents were dead. She knew all about death – that’s where her father had gone, too, according to Ifalna. She reached for one of Tseng’s hands. He gave it to her once he was breathing again, calmer now, slowly coming down from the panic.

“They’re in the Lifestream, then?” she asked. “They’ve returned to the Planet just like Dad?”

“Yes, Aeris,” Ifalna said, her voice thick as the three of them huddled together under the stars. “They've returned to the Planet, too.”

\- - -


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER FOUR**

**\- - -**

_Midgar_

_[ present ]_

_\- - -_

She hadn’t realised what she was really doing until he told her to stop. 

There was power in this ability she’d nurtured. Men would bend over backwards if it might win them the affections of young girls. A smile, a sulk, a kiss, and they would do exactly as she asked. She had discovered this and used it as much as she dared. Though it felt strangely surreal the first time she let a man kiss her; down here all her friends did it. They would sit on lengths of dripping pipelines, exchanging advice, making one another laugh with their adventurous stories. They basked in this control they had of men, wondering at how far it could take them.

It was easy to fool teenage boys and old slummers who only wanted to win a smile from a pretty young woman. It was much harder, she discovered, to fool the men who had deeper pockets and deeper minds. 

And then there was Tseng. Tseng was on a different level altogether. He had never really counted as a man to her; the Turks were more like nocturnal creatures, blue-skinned humanoids, coffee-blooded and smiling sharp smiles. Extra ears strewn all over the city. Possibly capable of teleportation. He was strange, Tseng - he acted in ways than men normally didn’t. It was one of the reasons why she had grown so attached to him over the years. When she was smaller, it was because he didn’t talk like the others - he put herself on her level, entertained her most outlandish ideas, always took what she had to say with utmost solemnity as though she were the Midgar Mayor and he was taking notes. _Tseng, how old do you have to be before you’re allowed in the knife drawer? Tseng, what’s a humanitarian? Is it like a vegetarian except they eat humans? Tseng… you have to keep this a secret, all right? But I heard ghosts again last night._

When he tried to turn into her handler, claim sudden authority over her that he’d never held before, she’d hated him for being so presumptuous. It had felt like the end of the friendship they’d nurtured at the HQ. But once he became predictable, she had steadily come to expect him, wait eagerly for the Upperworld trips he took her on. She knew she could always count on him to be true to himself, whatever the season, whatever the time of day. 

Then when men down below began to let her know what they thought of her, whistling, stalking in the night, it occurred to her that Tseng might also be a man who had eyes and desires. The more the girls around her spoke of their experiences, the more she began to view him as more than just as a fellow creature skulking among the day-walkers.

She stared at him more when he wasn’t looking. It made her suddenly shy to realise how beautiful he was compared to those faces she saw regularly down below. Clean, smooth skin, a shade darker than her own. That long lustrous black hair, always groomed to perfection, cut to form a point at his waist. He always smelled of expensive Cologne; always held himself straight like he was readying for a formal speech.

It began to scare her a little. How handsome he was. This sudden attraction she felt towards a man of ShinRa. What did it mean when he stood close to her? When he smiled at her? Was it all benign? Was she childish to think that he could have no second thoughts, that his eyes skipped over her budding curves without once admiring them like all the other men did?

She decided to make a target of him. That was the only way she knew how to deal with these feelings. Barge into the flirting herself so she wouldn’t have to worry that he might say something inappropriate one day.

For a while she thought she had him in her pocket. She got too cocky, boosted by her experiments with easier targets down below. He fell into step beside her whenever she offered a new direction for their relationship to go in. Walking arm-in-arm? Check. Smiles that were too intimate, gazes that lasted too long? Check. Innuendos? They made him delightfully uncomfortable, so she made them as crass as she dared. And with every new line she crossed, it felt impossible to backtrack. 

Then she crossed one final line, and found she had stumbled out of the game altogether and into cold, unknown territory. It was sunset in the botanical park, the only time of day where the sun managed to push through the clouds and throw orange light across the city. She was sitting in the grass with him, high on the successes she’d reaped so far - his laughter, his closeness, the way he’d side-eye her knowingly when she ventured into inappropriate territory. It was strangely flattering that _he_ might show her that kind of attention – because it was _him_ , it was Tseng, her friend, her handler, her mentor. The man who knew her more intimately than anybody. The wide collar of her T-shirt had gaped over her shoulder, leaving it bare, her bra strap visible. She was hyperconscious of it, especially when his eyes kept flicking to it. He must’ve known she was leaving it like that on purpose.

Then their gazes crossed and she held him there. Daring him. Daring herself. Deep down she had no idea if she even wanted to kiss him – she just knew this was the next logical step. The longer they lingered there, the more serious and withdrawn his expression became. At last, he said, “Aeris.” 

That’s when the cold prickles started. She was on the edge of something. A precipice. If she didn’t do something now - make a decision, turn left or right - then she’d fall through the floor, out of the carefully delineated corridors of this game she was so used to playing. 

She leaned in, kissed him. It was more of a thrust of the chin - lips sliding across his, smearing gloss there. Her heart was pounding so hard as she held onto his black suede jacket. 

“No - Aeris,” he grunted. His hands were on her shoulders, stiff, unyielding. He forced her away from him, and she floated there between those firm hands, lost in the shadow of the coming consequence. She had always known there was some dire consequence if she lost this game - she had always felt it in her bones. But she’d never articulated what it was, exactly. 

He stared at her, wearing a kind of solemn expression she’d never seen before. His mouth was parted, frowning as he tried to find what to say.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said. “You know me. You don’t have to do any of this. If you need something, you just ask me and I’ll provide it if I can. That’s how this has always worked.”

Humiliation crept through her. It made her brace herself, glare at him. He was just being self-righteous, trying to accuse her of being too forward so he could hide his own desires.

“Stop trying to pretend you’re the bigger man, Tseng,” she spat at him. “You’ve been enjoying this just like all the others. I know you always expected something to happen in the long run. Didn’t you?”

“No,” Tseng insisted, looking concerned and perhaps a little ashamed. “ _No._ Aeris - I don’t expect anything from you. I just want you to be happy. No man should expect anything like that from you. You’re - Gaia, you’re fourteen.”

She didn’t know why her throat was growing tight, why her eyes were prickly and hot. Why did it feel like he was calling her sick, disgusting, deranged? Why did it feel like he was stripping her of power somehow? It was only a kiss - it was only rejection. But there was so much more under the surface, grinding and groaning like heavy machinery in her chest.

“Yes. Fourteen,” she echoed. “That isn’t _young_ by slum standards.”

He let go of her, eyes searching her face as he tried to find a response to that. He looked as though she just told him a dear friend of his had died. 

“I understand why you’d say that,” he said carefully. “But - Aeris. You _are_ young. And I’m your friend. You don’t need to nurture any kind of ambiguity, you don’t need to promise me anything. I’ll always be here for you.” 

“You’re only my _friend_ because ShinRa decided you should be,” she bit back. “Maybe you don’t care about me one bit. Maybe you just like having free access to a pretty fourteen-year-old girl.”

That hurt him. She could tell. Chaotic excitement brimmed in her, to have won at least one small victory over him. 

“How can you say that?” he said quietly. 

“Well it’s true, isn’t it? And you’re the one who made it ambiguous. You’re always looking at me.” She leaned closer - he was growing paler with each new victory she won. “All men want something. Why did you stay on this assignment for so long if it wasn’t for that?”

“Aeris. Stop it.” His voice was clipped, heavy with formality. “I stayed on this assignment because it’s my job. Because I care about you. Being your age and living in Sector 4 - I know it must be difficult right now, I know you and your friends are testing the limits. But please, don’t try this with me.” 

Defeat resounded all the louder. Those words only meant that he knew exactly what she was doing. And he wouldn’t let her have the upper hand in this relationship. She finally understood then, that that had been the goal of this game all along. Gaining the upper hand over the men she feared the most. Anticipating what they might want before they could force it on her.

If she was the instigator, if she was the one who pushed… then she would be in control. She wouldn’t be the one submitting to nasty surprises. 

The way he looked at her told her he understood her mindset all too well. 

Shame burned so hot that she couldn’t look him in the face. She scrambled for her bag, straightened her T-shirt so it hid her bra strap. He called after her, but she ran, she ran all the way to the train station, tears blurring the sight of the Upperworld streets. 

-

It was strange, afterwards. All kinds of feelings and disjointed thoughts filled her mind as she tried to figure out where to go from here. Why she felt so powerless and vulnerable when her face was scrubbed, her imperfections red and glaring, the baby fat on her cheeks denying her access to the glamorous world of the _woman_ , the femme fatale that grinned from every advertisement billboard, promising girls amazing rewards if they only borrowed her dark eyes and luscious red mouth. 

She hated the childishness of her true features. It felt like devolution, wrapping herself back up into a chrysalis of dead skin and spots and round edges. It felt like giving up some type of agency, some thrilling world where her every word held hidden meaning, her every carefully crafted posture communicated a thousand demands to the onlooker. 

She went to the labs for her monthly check-up. And the devolution was complete. Here, she was a helpless larva again. Her arms and legs were placed; her body checked and monitored. Measuring tape, scales, samples, questionnaires. Tseng was the one to escort her back down, and it had been a long time since she’d allowed herself to be this bare, ugly, half-formed creature in his presence. 

She wanted to disappear. Surely he’d be horrified at the sight of her. But instead he seemed to relax around her again now that she wasn’t wearing extra years on her face, extra grit in her voice, extra confidence in her padded bras and form-fitting dresses. She was just a kid again - tired, miserable, not up for conversation. Once the embarrassment had dwindled, she found it was a relief to not tense up in his presence as she had done for a while. On the way back down to the slums, they sat side by side in the train and she didn’t say a word to him.

It didn’t feel like she was disappointing him somehow by not living up to expectations. It didn’t feel like some witty spar she had to win, some power play she had to struggle to overturn. It was just his large familiar presence beside her, non-judgmental, quiet. He knew what she had just endured, why she had to endure it month after month. He was escorting her down as part of his contract, for her security. 

If she just sat here and left things alone… then that’s all it had to be, really.

On the way through the junkyards, she had to pause and sit down. They’d had her perform so much magic that she felt all twisted up and wrung dry like an old rag. Her legs would barely carry her. Tseng stood by her, appraised their surroundings, then sat beside her. 

“You all right?” 

“Yeah, I just need a minute.”

“I have some Ethers if you need one.”

She perked up. “Oh, do you have those raspberry flavoured ones?”

He smiled and reached into his leather satchel. “Of course.”

The Ether glowed pink in its small glass bottle. She took it and drank with relish. The familiar taste brought comfort, soothed the ache of magical expenditure and reminded her of the first time he’d made her try this brand. He knew she had a sweet tooth - he was always indulging her when he could. 

It was just a bottle of Ether, but it reminded her of something vital. How well he knew her. How he had always looked out for her. 

How she had absolutely squandered the deep understanding that lay between them with her stupid, stupid games. It was difficult now to look at him, the elegant cheekbones, those almond-shaped eyes, that face that was more familiar to her than even Elmyra’s. 

She thought it had been a crush at first. Then all of this ridiculousness happened and now - she didn’t know what she thought of him any more. 

All she knew was that she was inordinately relieved that he hadn’t allowed her to kiss him again. This, simply sitting together with no more expectations than to follow their usual routine - it was such a comfort to settle back into it with no more ambiguity. It would probably feel weird for a few weeks, but like with any other argument they had had in the past, they would drift back into their usual dynamic. 

Tseng took the Ether from her. “If you need another, there’s plenty more where that came from.”

“I’m sorry,” she blurted out. “I’m sorry, Tseng. I don’t know why - why I did that.” She _did_ know, and so did he, but neither mentioned it. “I didn’t want to ruin anything.” 

Tseng turned to face her, his expression gentle. “You didn’t ruin anything.”

“I just feel so stupid,” she said with a helpless laugh. 

“Don’t,” he said simply. To her horror she was close to tears again - she looked up at the blinking lights that lined the Plate, the slum’s own multicoloured constellations. 

“You’re not stupid, Aeris,” Tseng added. “The slums are a harsh place, and you have ShinRa’s involvement on top of all the rest. It’s normal to get tangled up sometimes. I know I’ve never been a fourteen year old girl, but - ” 

Aeris gave a groan of embarrassment. “OK, OK, shut _up_.”

Grinning, he fished in his satchel again, taking out some chocolate energy bars for her. She accepted them with a self-conscious smile.

“Thanks.”

“You mind if I smoke?”

She raised her eyebrows, changing tack as she always did when he mentioned his love for poisoning himself. “Uh - _yes._ Haven’t you quit yet?”

They sat, surrounded by the stench of oil and old rusted metal, Aeris blazing through her usual reasons why he was an idiot for smoking, him trying to keep his packet out of her reach. She was laughing in minutes, and he finally gave up, shoving his packet back in his satchel so she might not grab it and hurl it into the junkheap around them. 

_\- - -_


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drinking game: take a shot every time the word "ShinRa" appears in this chapter.   
> (Thanks for reading guys <3)

**\- - -**

_Midgar, ShinRa HQ_

_[ memories ]_

**\- - -**

“I wanted to bring you in on this one, Tseng.”

Veld marched across the corridor that led to the Turk briefing room. Tseng strode by his side, looking grave. It wasn’t often that Veld brought Tseng out alone for mission briefings – these past few years he’d been accomplishing missions alongside Rude and Reno, as well as several others.

“We have an urgent rescue mission,” Veld told him. “Our officer in the field needs back-up to get a few of our weapon dealers out. There’s an intel leak to be prevented.” He glanced at Tseng from beneath bushy eyebrows. “It’s a Wutai assignment. You’d be going alone.”

Tseng breathed out slowly. It was bound to come. An assignment overseas. Veld had told him to expect it – he had spent the past years poring over the changing politics of his homeland as the Wutai war raged worse than ever. Wutai had always been on his mind.

And now… it would be his first opportunity to go back there.

A rescue mission. Nothing grisly. Nothing involving murder, as he’d long feared.

Veld opened the door to the briefing room, observing his most promising trainee.

“Will you take it? I can’t divulge the details if you don’t.”

Tseng straightened, stared into the room at the blank projector screen.

“I’ll take it,” he said.

They stepped inside.

Veld took him through the details. He was to fly out to a secret ShinRa weapons factory on one of the islands of Wutai. The location of this factory had been discovered by Wutai’s anti-ShinRa factions in the last twenty-four hours. It was crucial to get their scientists and weapons dealers out of there before they could be compromised by the Wutains.

Tseng sat tight-lipped throughout the briefing.

Wutai’s anti-ShinRa factions. If he was to confront them… the Turks never persuaded anti-ShinRa terrorists of anything. The policy was always to shoot first and ask questions later.

“If you accomplish this, you’ve passed,” Veld said. “You’ll be fully enrolled, with all the benefits that come with it.”

Of course. Of course this would be the test that would earn him his Turk badge.

Tseng could’ve laughed.

He stared at the map on the projector screen, the files on the Turk who would be meeting him there, and all the profiles of the people they’d have to rescue.

“Legend, the officer you’ll be working with – he’ll be the one to deal with the Wutains,” Veld said. “That’s his responsibility. Your sole responsibility is to lead the rescue mission. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

\- - -

The factory was overrun by the time they got there.

What was meant to be a covert mission soon became a bloodbath. Legend, Tseng’s partner for the mission, was a homicidal maniac. He laughed as he gunned down those who stood in his way.

Tseng had gone in by stealth, keeping hidden as he ventured to the secure rooms where the scientists and arms dealers had gathered. The staccato of gunfire was everywhere around them, echoing through the facility. Lights blinked and flashed as Tseng led his rescues out, gun held firm in his grip.

Diligently he kept his eyes off the bloody trails that marred the walls and floor.

He had never killed anyone yet. Incapacitated people, stunned people, yes. Accompanied Turks on missions where men and women were killed, yes.

But he had never done the shooting himself.

It was just a rescue mission, Veld had told him. All he had to do was get these people out unharmed.

One more door. One more corridor. One more code to type with trembling fingers –

“Hey! Turk! TURK!”

“Oy! There’s one over here!”

The shouts were in Wutain, a southern dialect that scorched his ears. Tseng jerked around.

There were a dozen of them, armed to the teeth as their ran down the corridor.

-

The scientists were safe. They’d got out. He’d seen to it.

Tseng woke with a pounding headache. He was blind in one eye. Some struggling and biting pain told him he was bound and gagged on a chair.

He hadn’t been able to shoot.

Groaning and gasping through his gag, he alerted his captors that he was awake. They came closer around him. One seemed to wield more authority than the others – he came right up in Tseng’s face, breathing down on him.

Tseng looked up. The man’s skull was half-shaved. He sported a traditional Wutain tattoo, curling up his neck and over his skull. It glittered with Mako dust, giving a surreal life-like shine to the dragon it depicted.

“Looks like we found ourselves a bootlicker,” the tattooed man spat. “But not just any bootlicker. A _Turk_. What’s your story then, _son?_ ”

Tseng glared up at him until the man pulled the gag out of his mouth.

He didn’t know what to say. How to tell them.

He hadn’t chosen this.

He hadn’t chosen to be here. He hadn’t chosen to wear this suit.

But at the same time, he had a duty towards his parents. He had a duty towards the people who had saved his life.

 _Smack._ The butt of a gun against his jaw.

“What’s your family name?” The question was yelled at him. “You loyalist _trash!_ You crawled so far up the Emperor’s arsehole that you found yourself in Midgar, _huh_?”

“I’m no loyalist,” Tseng growled.

“Ha! Really!”

“I’m not,” he went on, knowing his enemy had no right to know this, no right to make him talk. “I hate the Emperor.”

“Then are you just stupid? Don’t you know working for ShinRa means working for the Emperor? You come here and you protect ShinRa’s assets in this country – you protect the occupation that the Emperor himself authorised!”

Tseng’s breaths were coming fast and hard. The script had flipped. Loyalists used to be anti-reform, only interested in protecting old Wutai and the imperial family. Then the Emperor shook hands with President Shinra and the “loyalists” must’ve decided that _some_ reform was all right, as long as it was in the service of the Emperor. The political landscape he’d known barely a few years ago had completely changed. 

It was so clear to him now. ShinRa had played them on both fronts.

They had used the revolutionary party to put pressure on the Emperor. Then once the Emperor ceded to their demands, suddenly Wutai and ShinRa were allies. Suddenly anything ShinRa might’ve done against the Emperor was water under the bridge.

But the popular factions, the people who had called for reform – their demands were forgotten entirely.

He didn’t have the vocabulary for what this new faction was. All he knew was that he hadn’t held much love for ShinRa either back when he ran with the revolutionary party. He wondered if he had marched side by side with this tattooed man one day.

It was probable.

 _Smack._ Another whack against his jaw.

“ _What’s your family name!”_

He was going to die.

A realisation suddenly hit him. Tseng had always supposed that the old loyalists had killed his parents. But what if it had been other members of his own party? Perhaps those who didn’t agree with their choice of sponsorship?

He had never been given the time to agree, either. He had been thrust into ShinRa’s arms, thrust into his parent’s choices.

He had never had the time to make his own choices.

He wondered if his parents would be proud. They had died for ShinRa. Now he would die for ShinRa too. The thought made him want to laugh a mindless, mirthless laugh. For the first time, he didn’t think of them with grief and confusion and heartache. He thought of them as culprits. 

Their hands had pushed him under. They were the ones who still held him here, even after death. Ghostly hands still weighing heavy on his shoulders.

If he was about to meet them, then why not acknowledge their responsibility in this whole situation? That way the party would know – whatever was left of it, anyway – that the traitors were all dead.

He glared up at his murderer, snarling to uncover blood-red teeth.

“Kobayashi.”

His murderer raised his eyebrows. He laughed, then turned to gesture at his fellows.

“So you’re the Kobayashi boy,” he said. Then, with relish: “Served on a silver platter. I’m honoured to be the one to end your line.”

He raised his gun.

He didn’t have time to shoot. Gunfire exploded in the room. Legend had arrived in the nick of time, and no matter what Tseng yelled at him, the man didn’t stop until they were all sprawled and bloody.

All save one.

The tattooed man was gasping and panting against the wall while Legend untied Tseng. Rage and anguish lurched through him, making him glad for the physical pain – it gave him something to latch onto.

He stood up. Legend looked at him sternly, pressing a gun into his hands.

“Kill the last one,” he said.

Legend had probably seen his incapacity to shoot the rebels. This was a test. Tseng clamped the gun tight in his hand, cocked it. The sound rattled through his body, making his heart slip a few notches.

He stood in front of the tattooed man, gun in hand. They shared a long look. 

“Were you revolutionary?” Tseng asked, sticking to Wutain, not caring if Legend didn’t understand.

The man smirked at him. “While it lasted,” he spat. “While it still meant something. Your parents and those other corrupt families are the reason it went to shit.”

Tseng observed him a moment longer.

“Was it the party who killed my parents?” he asked, his voice thin.

The man’s grin widened. “What do you think? You were all so fucking naïve. Thinking ShinRa would see an outstretched hand and not take the whole arm.”

“Tseng,” Legend said, a warning in his tone. “We don’t have all day.”

His throat was tight as he raised his gun, pointing it at the tattooed man’s head.

“They weren’t corrupt,” he said through gritted teeth. “It was ideological. They thought ShinRa were our allies.”

“Tell yourself that, if it makes you sleep better at night,” the man sneered.

He lay his finger on the trigger.

“You’re wrong,” he growled.

_BANG._

The gun seemed to go off by itself. Tseng watched, horror-struck, as the man slid down the wall. Legend did nothing more than pat Tseng on the back like the assignment had just been to press a button or pick a lock. Then he hurried to finish looting the bodies for ammunition. Tseng forced himself to squat down by the tattooed man’s side and do the same. Guns. Knives. Materia.

A small satchel stamped with a familiar ideogram.

Swallowing hard, Tseng pocketed it and followed Legend out to finish their mission.

\- - -

“First kill?” Legend grunted on their way back. They were piloting their aircraft together, carrying the rescued scientists and arms dealers to the Wutain capital.

Tseng stared straight ahead. “Yes.”

Again that giant paw patting him. _Good boy. Good bootlicker._ “Now that you’ve done it, you’ve done it,” he said. “None of them will be as hard as that one was. You just needed a push over the edge.”

“A push over the edge,” Tseng echoed. He felt heavy, numb, as though all his rage and sorrow had crystallized in the pit of his stomach.

“Yeah. I guarantee you. It all goes up from here.” Legend shot him a grin. “I hear this was your test? You’re a full Turk now, huh? How does that feel?”

“You saved my skin,” Tseng muttered. “I doubt Veld will see me as worthy.”

Worthy.

 _Worthy_.

Now there was a funny word.

Legend knocked his shoulder amiably. “You fulfilled all your directives,” he reminded him. “You got all those scientists out. Killing the Wutain was extra. Veld will give you a pass, I’m telling you. That badge is in your pocket already.”

\- - -

Aeris hurtled into the common room as soon as she heard he was back. She grabbed him around the waist before he even had the time to set his bag down.

“You were gone for _ages_ ,” she said, making him scoff. It had barely been three days.

She rambled on at him about what the younger trainees had got up to in his absence. Apparently Rude and Reno had stayed up late with her playing video games on the common room widescreen. Ifalna wasn’t around that night, so they had let her play one of the shooting games she wasn’t usually allowed to play.

Tseng ground his teeth. They had no right to go against Ifalna’s wishes. If Ifalna wasn’t around as much these days, it was because she was getting weaker. It was plain disrespect on their part, to rope Aeris into their bullshit. He’d have to knock their heads together when next he saw them.

First things first. There was a difficult conversation they needed to have.

He opened with a gift. He’d taken something back for her from the Wutain capital. It was a swath of flowery pink cotton, a wide-sleeved yukata for her to wear. The one for Ifalna was folded up in silk paper; Aeris would have to bring it to her, as Ifalna didn’t come down into the common room much any more.

“Tseng,” she cried as she unfurled hers. “ _Tseng._ Oh, Gaia! It’s gorgeous!”

She twirled with it against her chest, then shrugged it on over her normal clothes. It was a little big for her, but she’d grow into it.

They made tea and she sat at one of the tables with her yukata still draped over her slight frame. His heart pounded as he tried to bring up the subject.

“So. This last mission was my test. I’m a full Turk now,” he told her.

She put her tea mug down. “Oh.” She was apparently attuned to his flat tone, because she didn’t congratulate him. “Is that – ? Are you happy?”

He smiled at her. Trust her to ask him something like that.

“It means I won’t be living here any more,” he said. “They’re giving me my own living arrangements on the plate.”

Aeris frowned. Then her mouth wobbled a little as she thought hard.

“Oh. But you – you’ll still be around, right?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“You’ll still come to see me?”

“Aeris, I will always be here for you and Ifalna.”

“How often will you come up?”

“I’ll be in the headquarters all the time. So, probably on a weekly basis.”

Aeris frowned down at her mug, then promptly got off her chair and came around the table to hug him. He reciprocated, the yukata bunching between them as she climbed up onto his lap.

“I’ll come, Aeris,” Tseng said, stroking her hair, his heart heavier than it had ever been.

“Don’t forget me,” she said in a small voice.

She was scared. She was always scared these days, but she did her best to hide it. Ifalna was slipping away, and neither of them were ready to properly acknowledge it.

“I won’t forget you,” Tseng said firmly. “I’ll be around so often you’ll have to kick me out.”

She giggled. When she drew back she gave him a smile that he knew he did not deserve.

“OK then.”

\- - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Turk stuff in this story is based on the events of Before Crisis, but I'm twisting them around to fit my own headcanons. Also fudging the timelines a bit because I really can't be bothered to respect the convolluted mess that is the Before Crisis canon. (To me OG is canon; everything else is just malleable fic fodder ahaha.)  
> I hope things make sense, I'm kinda hurrying to write this (because fuck me it is getting SO LONG) so sorry if some of it comes across as a bit slapdash! If you have any criticism feel free to tell me, I can edit for better comprehension. <3


	6. Chapter 6

**\- - -**

_Midgar_

_[ present ]_

**\- - -**

It was better for a while. Aeris seemed to simmer down. She still wore pretty dresses, she still styled her hair – but it was no longer a frantic attempt at piling on extra years, it didn’t make her hyperconscious as soon as men hovered around her.

Tseng wondered at the necessity of letting her go now that she had a better grip on their relationship. That possessive part of him tried whispering to him that she was fine now, she wasn’t trying to pull him down into something they’d both regret. So why _should_ he let her go? No need to, now – no emergency to prevent.

But he had given his word to Veld. There was no knowing if the relationship might become complicated again. And, she needed to start nurturing other relationships. That hadn’t changed.

It was another Saturday when he finally worked up the nerve. They were coming back from their usual garden trip, ambling towards Elmyra’s house. On the way, Tseng struggled to segue into the topic, leaving awkward pauses and dithering on small talk.

At long last he managed, “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

And just like that, just as she was tentatively relaxing into their old dynamic, he was the one to break it apart again. 

They stood by the water canals that lead to Elmyra’s house. Tseng was trying to explain it while Aeris stared at him like she did when he left her alone at the labs to wait for the whitecoats. 

“These arrangements have their time limits,” he said. “I trained your new handler myself, she’s a lovely woman, very capable - ” 

“You can’t,” she interrupted. “You can’t just - you can’t do that, just dump me on someone else like that!”

“Aeris - ”

“It’s my fault, isn’t it? You requested I be transferred to someone else because I ruined everything.”

“No you didn’t,” Tseng began, but she was too far gone into anger now to listen.

“Yes I did! I ruined everything and now you hate me - ”

“Aeris, for Gaia’s sake.” He caught her so she might not go haring off into the flowery pathways as she always did when she was losing an argument. “I don’t hate you. But you’re entering a phase of life where it might be more suitable - ”

“A phase of life!” she echoed with wild laughter. “No! I don’t want a new handler. I don’t want someone else. I promise, Tseng, please - I won’t do it again, I won’t get weird again.”

It was going exactly as he thought it would. She had no one outside of himself and Elmyra, no one who knew who she really was, who knew what she had lived through and what still lay ahead of her. She had lost everyone - one after the other, her father, her mother, the ever-shifting ebb of people in her life. Family friends. Childhood friends whose interest sparked and waned again. 

And now she was losing him.

It was impossible to look into her red-rimmed eyes and not know exactly how much he was hurting her. 

It was necessary, he reminded himself. 

“It’s not your fault,” he murmured. “It’s company policy.”

She took a shaking breath, swiping angrily at the tears on her cheeks. 

He stood before her, keeping a cordial step away as always. She tried to imagine what it would be like to have some random blue suit instead of him looming over her. Surely whoever Tseng had picked, they’d need a full overview of Aeris’s life, her personality, and advice on how to _handle her._

He had always appeared as such a monolithic man, one who always knew exactly what he was doing. He always knew what to say, how to take care of a situation. She realised then just how much she had counted on that ability of his, to always make her feel like he had things in hand. And now - this was the first time she saw him lose that authority. He was giving up because he didn’t know how to go forwards from here.

In a sense… he might be just as scared of her as she was of him. Maybe this was his way of admitting that he had noticed her, that he did find her attractive. It might just be her projecting, it might be a silly fancy – but what if it was true? The idea made her feel strange – giddy with flattery, but also a little frightened, because Tseng was so omnipresent in her life. Like if the night sky were attracted to her. Where was she meant to hide?

“We’ll never see each other again, then?” she muttered.

“Of course we’ll see each other. I’ll still be around if you need me,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere. You have my number.”

“Tell me honestly,” she insisted. “Is it because I kissed you?”

He searched for what to reply to that, before offering her a small, gentle smile. “It’s for a lot of reasons. You need to see other people than just me. That kiss made me realise that. If you had somebody in your life…”

Somebody in her life. Aeris wanted to laugh. Who was there? Fumbling, eager boys – leering, scary men. She wasn’t sure she could ever be attracted to anyone of the opposite sex. Except… Tseng. Tseng felt safe. Tseng was the only one who she knew wouldn’t break her into pieces if she allowed herself to be vulnerable with him. 

Somehow it became heartache; somewhere there was a red-lipped woman, telling her to be outraged that he was turning her down.

“If I wasn’t your ward, would you have kissed me back?” she challenged him.

That destabilized him. He gave her a stern frown, did that thing where he straightened and put his hands behind his back, grappling for professionalism. “No,” he said, slamming down the word with as much authority as he could.

She saw right through it. He had built that word up so much that it couldn’t be anything else than a lie.

Perhaps she wanted revenge; wanted to make him hurt as much as he was hurting her. She grabbed his lapels and kissed him full on the mouth, and this time she held on, bit down hard on his lower lip, made him groan in pain.

He wrenched her away from him again just as they both heard Elmyra’s voice. Aeris’s foster mother was storming down the flowery path towards them. The front door to her house was wide open - she had burst out upon seeing the scene.

Tseng stared down at Aeris, bewildered. She had known they were in plain sight of Elmyra. She had kissed him on purpose. Perhaps this time, it was to make sure the bond between them was properly broken. 

His words had begun to splinter it - she had taken it in her hands and smashed it into pieces.

Elmyra was by Aeris’s side in seconds. Tseng took a decisive step back, bowed at the waist.

“Ma’am.”

“Give me one good reason, Tseng,” Elmyra growled. She had something in her hand – one of those fixed-up pea-shooters that the Sector 6 gangs salvaged from the junkyards and sold to stay-at-home mothers.

“I’m relinquishing my duty over your daughter,” he informed her as he straightened. “Her new handler will be introduced to her starting next month.”

Elmyra hadn’t been expecting such a prompt response. She looked between them both, gauging Tseng’s irritable professionalism and Aeris’s red-faced anguish. 

“She’s called Cissnei,” Tseng went on. “She’ll be taking over from here. There’s been a change in policy - we'll be less present in Aeris's life from now on. Less direct contact.”

He was careful with his passive voice, as though he hadn’t been the one to write up and implement the policy changes himself. Elmyra looked somewhat satisfied by the idea that the spooks wouldn’t be haunting her daughter’s steps quite so close. 

Aeris had turned her back to him. She was holding herself around the shoulders. He knew she wasn’t going to take this well. 

“Is that all?” Elmyra snapped.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Then you have no reason to overstay your welcome.”

“Indeed. I’ll take my leave. I just want you to know - if the new arrangement doesn’t work out, or if you need to contact me for any reason, you’re still a priority of the department.”

“Duly noted,” Elmyra said. Her voice still contained the snarl of an indignant mother. She was one single provocation away from tearing into him - that much was obvious. “Tseng - if I so much as catch you looking at my daughter again, now that she’s no longer under your responsibility - ” 

“Yes, ma’am. I understand completely. You have nothing to fear.” He bowed again, heart pounding as he tried to wrap up this disastrous exchange. “I wish you both all the best.”

Neither women bothered to reply. When he straightened, Elmyra was leading Aeris through the front door. The old lioness gave him one last scathing look, and then slammed the door shut.

He realised only afterwards that Aeris would be needing Ethers for her upcoming lab visit. Cissnei wouldn’t know which ones to buy – he had them specially imported from Gongaga. Quietly, though everything inside him lurched and howled at the chaos of the separation - he walked over to the front step and left his satchel full of Ethers. 

He didn’t look into the windows. He turned around, squared his shoulders, stepped down again. 

And he left for good.

\- - -


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise in advance that this chapter is kind of convoluted and has lots going on in it T___T This is the last of the chapters that goes into Before Crisis canon, technically this part of the story deserves to be chopped into chapters and looked at more closely but I just don't have the time or energy to do that. Hopefully this chapter works well enough regarding what I'm trying to get across re: Tseng's characterisation.  
> As always, thanks for reading <3

**\- - -**

_Midgar, ShinRa HQ_

_[ memories ]_

**\- - -**

“Hey, Aeris.”

Aeris looked up. She was curled up on the common room couch, holding a pretty silk-paper-wrapped present in her arms. She looked like she’d been crying.

Sephiroth gazed over at her from the open fridge. He had one of his standard packaged meals in hand, but the sight of her had distracted him from taking it out.

“You all right?”

Aeris looked up at her lab friend. Sephiroth was so tall now – he seemed to have sprouted up to adult height in barely a year’s time. His hair reached past shoulder-length now, and he still wore it up in a ponytail. Try as she might, she hadn’t managed to teach him to braid it. (Truth was he was embarrassed that he couldn’t do it, so he avoided practice.)

These days she didn’t really try to encourage him, or even approach him much at all. Truth was, she was beginning to feel queasy around him. Whenever he went on a mission to Wutai, she heard so many discordant voices rising in her head, felt so many lives brushing her own. It was like the Lifestream was bulging up and swallowing her. She knew he probably killed a lot of people. But he never talked about it when he came back to the HQ on leave. Never showed himself to be anything else than polite and detached, as he always had been.

Now that Rude and Reno had passed their Turk trials and moved out too, she didn’t have many companions in Tseng’s absence. The new Turk trainees sometimes proved to be good companions, but they didn’t really know her. Nor did they share the experience of the labs. Only Sephiroth understood that side of her. It made her continue to turn to him even now, when it scared her a little to do so.

She held up the present. “Tseng brought us gifts when he passed his Turk trials in Wutai,” she said. “Mum said she’d open the package when she felt well enough to wear it. But…”

She trailed off. Sephiroth walked around the tables until he’d gotten to the couch area, resting a knee on the armrest as he popped his meal open.

“Tseng passed his trial months ago,” he said.

“Yes,” Aeris muttered. “And he hasn’t been to see us at all. He said he wouldn’t forget me but he has. He _has_.”

“You know the Turks have a lot on their plate. He’s probably overwhelmed.”

Her voice was muffled as she spoke into the silk-wrapped package. “Yeah but he knows Mum hasn’t been well for a long time now. I thought… I thought he’d care enough to do something to help her.” 

Sephiroth absently forked some of his bland-looking meal into his mouth, gazing into space. He didn’t have much respite – he was rarely around what with his missions, his lab work and extensive training, as usual. When he ate it was more of a perfunctory food-shovelling than anything drawn-out or social.

Aeris wondered what he saw in the labs. If he ever saw what Ifalna was asked to perform. Her weakness seemed to stem from the excessive work they were having her do for them over the past few years.

“Are they still trying to get her to open some kind of pathway to the Promised Land?” she asked.

“As far as I know,” Sephiroth said.

“Why can’t they understand?” Aeris said crossly. “The Promised Land isn’t just a place you can walk into like some open field somewhere. Mum said nobody knows where it is, exactly. Or what it is.”

“I don’t think Hojo’s satisfied by those options,” Sephiroth said, finally perching on the armrest. The meal was gone in the next two minutes. He placed it down on the coffee table and then straightened, still staring into space. His expression had darkened when next he spoke: “It takes a lot to satisfy Hojo.”

Hugging the package against her chest, Aeris stared up at Sephiroth’s glowing turquoise eyes, the fine lines of his face. It was always quite disarming, how pretty his face was when the rest of his body showed all the signs of his rigorous military training. The Soldiers she saw training in the labs were all quite similar – young men straining their bodies to their absolute physical limits. 

“Are you doing OK?” she asked.

He made a noncommittal noise, wiping at one eye tiredly. “Yeah. I’m all right.” Always the same answer. Sephiroth was frustratingly laconic, but she was used to it by now. He nodded at her package. “Can I see it?”

“No,” she said, holding it tighter. “It’s Mum’s. She’s the one who has to open it.”

Sephiroth gazed at her with rare empathy. 

“I’ll watch out for her in the labs and tell you what I see.”

“Thanks.”

\- - -

There was a mole.

Somewhere in the ShinRa HQ, a mole was leaking information to Avalanche.

All of Tseng’s time was now occupied with this new anti-ShinRa group. With every single mission, he restated his own loyalties despite himself.

When he tried to justify his actions to himself in the dead of night, he told himself that the Turks were somewhat separate from ShinRa, in a way. He worked alongside Veld and their Turk workforce – it was its own family, its own unit. A lot of them had started out as criminals – they were certainly far from being a patriotic bunch.

But it didn’t work like that. They weren’t separate. However many times Veld let them prioritize their moral compasses, at the end of the day, they were out to protect ShinRa’s intel, ShinRa’s assets. Always.

It was easier to think of it in terms of hierarchy. Tseng worked for Veld. He and his partners watched out for one another. The drama in Junon allowed him to be sucked into the sense of urgency until he was no longer thinking about himself and his own conundrums at all.

Duty came first. His Turk partners came first. After a while, saving one another’s lives ties the kind of bonds that mere contracts or company policy never could.

After gruelling months of tracking paperwork and running through the streets of Junon searching for their mole, they still hadn’t made any progress. Veld blackmailed the President himself in order to not get fired, and they all found themselves in Midgar again, worse for wear but happy that their Director had thrown his weight around and won.

It proved the point that Tseng so desperately wanted to believe. Turks were in their own league. They had agency within the company, though it was limited.

He could continue to kid himself that it was someone else’s responsibility to worry about what was right and wrong.

-

Then one day he was forced to take that responsibility into his own hands.

Sephiroth marched into the Turk’s headquarters, asking to see him. The boy had helped with the situation in Junon, so they’d brushed shoulders quite often recently. Everyone was busy now sorting intel from Corel and managing the fall-out of the Junon situation, so he was let through without question.

Tseng was leaning over Reno and Rude’s joint desks, going over the reports they had written up. When he looked up, he found glowering turquoise eyes and that pale white face, so uncannily _other_ even as he stood right there in front of him. Flesh and blood. Flesh and Mako.

“A word,” Sephiroth commanded.

Tseng lifted an eyebrow. “We’re busy.”

“This is more important.” He lowered his voice: “It’s about the women in the labs.”

This made all three of them glance at one another. “Let’s go,” Tseng said, and a second later they all filed into one of the vacant cubicles so they could talk more privately.

-

“Ifalna is dying.”

Sephiroth’s words came like a kick to the stomach. Tseng had known it – they had all known it. They held no sway over the labs or how Hojo and Hollander organised things, so they had all simply avoided the issue, being completely wrapped up in Avalanche drama. Telling themselves it was somebody else’s business.

Now Sephiroth brought it back to the foreground. 

“Hojo is pushing that woman to her limit,” Sephiroth went on. “The Promised Land budget is being renegotiated because of how slow his progress is, so he’s panicking. And in his utter incompetence, he might just end up killing the one woman he sacrificed so much to obtain.”

Tseng had never heard that tremor of anger in Sephiroth’s voice. At least, not since he had grown into the young teenager that he was, his voice broken to a deep baritone, his moods vacillating unpredictably.

“Are you going to do something about it?” he demanded.

Reno glanced at Tseng. “She’s been out of it for the past two years or so, hasn’t she?” he muttered. “Hasn’t been getting any better, then?”

“No. You can count on Hojo to only make things worse,” Sephiroth said in clipped tones.

Tseng breathed out, staring through the window.

He had never even entertained the idea that they could try and go against ShinRa’s plans for those two women. He had commiserated with them so often, thinking they were all similarly buried in the inevitability of fate, tiny figures in ShinRa’s crushing grasp.

He realised abruptly that he’d never even thought of what he could feasibly do for them, now that he had more agency.

“What can we do?” Rude verbalised his thoughts.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Sephiroth said. “I can smuggle them out. I’ll just need your cooperation.”

Tseng looked at him sharply. “What? You want to break them out of the labs?”

Sephiroth held his gaze in that unnerving turquoise glow. “Have you seriously never considered it? You’d go off on your Turk career and leave them in the labs to rot? I thought you were close to them.”

Shame burned in Tseng’s fingertips. He glared at the boy. “And I didn’t think you cared at all.”

Sephiroth’s lip curled in a scowl. “Hojo has played god for long enough. Ifalna and Aeris –I’m done going along with it, looking the other way. I’m taller and stronger than him now. I’m _done._ ”

Tseng considered the boy. It seemed Veld’s insubordination in Junon hadn’t only inspired the Turks. It must’ve been the first time that Sephiroth saw a ShinRa man stand up to the immovable authority of the President, too.

Now he wanted to try a little insubordination, himself. And Tseng couldn’t blame him.

“Do we go to Veld with this?” Reno asked.

“No,” Rude said immediately. “He wouldn’t sanction this. He helped Hojo to grab them in the first place.”

“If he knew the state they were in, he might be swayed,” Reno said. “He blackmailed the President once. He could do it again.”

“He only managed to do that because he was in the right,” Tseng snapped. “President Shinra acted out of impatience and chucked a bunch of a people at an unsolvable problem, then tried to blame Veld for all of it. He knew he was being an ass. This is a different situation entirely. President Shinra has no reason to relinquish those girls. And if Veld tries to blackmail him for this – I don’t think there’s any chance that he’d win. Nor keep his office.”

“And Veld has no particular attachment to them,” Rude said. “No reason to go along with us.”

“They’re two human beings,” Reno shot back. “A tiny little girl and her mother.”

“Didn’t stop him grabbing them, did it?”

“Veld turns a blind eye to what happens in the science department,” Sephiroth said, his voice once again sheathed of ice. “As does everyone else. If we do this, we do it alone.”

Heart thumping, Tseng held that Mako-tipped glare.

The boy was challenging him. _Here’s your chance to prove yourself, Wutain._ Was he too dipped in the red ink of ShinRa loyalty to do this? Or had he retained some of his own free will?

Tseng squared his shoulders.

Never mind that this dragged him straight back down into those deep-seated anxieties and discomfort he had been diligently avoiding. This was Aeris and her mother they were talking about.

He wasn’t about to back down now.

\- - -

They had a plan. Reno and Rude would stay in Midgar while Tseng accompanied Veld and the other Turks to Corel. The two young Turks would oversee the escape, fudge the security footage, help Sephiroth to smuggle Aeris and Ifalna to the helipads. There, Reno would fly them out of Midgar and to a safehouse they’d secured in Kalm.

And then many things happened at once.

Once they arrived in Corel, everything changed. The situation was far worse than any of them had feared. The insurgents weren’t just Avalanche – they were the citizens of the town themselves, blockading all ShinRa troops.

Following leads, the Turks delved into the Corel mines. And they finally found the source of all their troubles.

The mole.

Rufus Shinra.

Here was a boy who was born with everything, the world at his feet. And he was fomenting chaos, funding this whole anti-ShinRa movement, rising against his father.

For a moment, Tseng imagined doing the same thing. Rising against his own fate. Refusing what his parents had done for him, refusing to honour their sacrifice.

The way Rufus smiled and cocked his head – it made Tseng envy him.

But the kid quickly showed his colours as they interrogated him. He was not following any type of moral compass. He was acting out of sheer pride. Wanting to topple the patriarch so he could take his place.

Ego. That was what drove this boy. Pure ego.

The intel was shared with President Shinra right then in the coal mines, while Tseng bound the boy’s wrists behind his back. And the orders came. Veld looked at Tseng as the words crackled into the silence.

“ _Wipe it all out. The reactor, the town, all of it. Then bring the boy home.”_

The Corel reactor already had a bomb installed in it by Avalanche. It was small enough to destroy just the reactor itself. President Shinra was asking them to rig enough explosives in there to make the blast radius wide enough to wipe out the whole town. It would be convenient – an end to Avalanche, and an end to their image as brave anti-ShinRa crusaders.

Veld gritted his teeth and took the responsibility. His Turks all bowed their heads, understanding the weight of task, all of them knowing and admiring that Veld had the strength to carry it out.

He placed his hand on Tseng’s shoulder. “Get Rufus to the aircrafts,” he ordered. “Secure his return to Midgar. I'll catch up with you.”

“Yes, sir.”

-

On the way to the aircrafts, Tseng was intercepted.

Veld came back from his bomb-rigging mission to find the leader of Avalanche herself leading a rescue mission to grab Rufus out of their hands. There was a fight along the dusty clifftops of Corel, until Tseng finally took the upper hand and held her at gunpoint as she knelt there, hands clenched over bullet wounds in her legs.

When Veld came close enough to see what she looked like, he knelt beside her and pushed her hair out of her face.

For a moment there was only silence, Tseng wondering why his Director was putting himself in his crosshairs. And then –

“Felicia?” Veld asked in a hoarse voice.

“You know her?” Tseng demanded, lowering his gun.

The Director of the Turks turned his face up to Tseng. “She’s my daughter.”

-

Veld was pushing the Director badge into Tseng’s hands.

“No,” Tseng said again. “I’m not ready, Veld. I can’t do this.”

“Yes you can.”

“I’m not even… you know my background. There’s no way I’m suitable – ”

“You are the perfect candidate. You follow orders. You take care of your own. You put yourself aside and stay in control whatever the situation. I couldn’t ask for a better successor.”

“Sir…”

“Take it, Tseng. I know you can handle this. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.”

“Yes, sir.”

-

Tseng stood in the hovering aircraft, watching the retreat effort. He had to wait until all ShinRa troops and Turks were out of range.

The detonator was in his hand. Veld had given him the responsibility.

Director. Director of the Turks, Tseng Kobayashi.

He stared down at the town, the choked streets, the pandemonium that civil unrest had caused. He thought of Avalanche, funded by Shinra Junior himself. The great anti-ShinRa resistance movement, funded by a branch of ShinRa itself.

It was the same story. The same old fucking story as Wutai. Those idiots down there thought they were in league with a brave young man, an ideological ally. Someone who would help them get rid of ShinRa’s influence.

They were all just as pathetic as his parents. They were all corrupt. Whether they realised it or not was immaterial. The results were the same – the same group of men benefited, and the same people went on suffering and bickering among themselves.

All of them spent their time running around in a headless frenzy. Doing the work of those who truly held power without even knowing it.

It was all pointless. Avalanche’s little crusade. The revolutionary party’s crusade. Pointless and pathetic.

In the end the same men retained control. The same men held the detonator and decided on the fates of the many.

Now in some glitch of fate… Tseng was the one who held it in his hand. The protective lid was popped off, the red button under his thumb.

It was his responsibility. His duty to carry out Shinra Senior’s orders.

It all came down to him now.

The sense of absolute power was as terrifying as it was exhilarating.

The aircraft rotors whirred incessantly in his ears. _THRUM THRUM THRUM._ Wind whipped at his face, his ponytail, his blue suit. The smell of burning already choked the air, what with the destruction that the ShinRa troops had already caused.

He felt as though he were in a dream. Surely no man could consider actually doing something like this. It was an impossibly huge task. It was inhumane on every level. Unjustifiable.

“Sir!” came a trooper’s voice from his radio. “All clear! Scarlet’s pulled out the last of the men.”

It was the signal. The next logical step lay ahead.

Urgency gripped him. He had to decide in the next second.

He was inhabited by chaos. Inhabited by the smoke, the screams below, the image of Rufus grinning bloodily up at them. Veld, the immovable Veld, stepping down into the irrationality of fatherhood. It had all crumbled around him. Whirled out of his control.

Rufus had acted as a disorderly teenager, caught up in his wounded pride. Veld had allowed himself to be humane, emotional, forgiving. Those tattooed Wutains at Tseng’s last mission in Wutai had acted out of pure rage and hatred. That way lay the worst kind of disorder. Tseng was observing it now. He was allowing himself to feel, too, and those feelings told him to jump out of this aircraft, to surrender to the chaos.

No. No. To wield power like this – he had to regain control. He was Director now.

Control was a set of steps. One after the other, if they were executed in the proper order, the end result was beautifully predictable. Mission after mission, that was what Tseng had observed.

It was as simple as clicking a button.

A profound calm bloomed within him as he surrendered to his duty. He wasn’t a person executing an unspeakable crime. He was simply the last step on the list, executing itself.

Achieving the predictable result.

Achieving absolute control.

_Click._

The explosion was a white blaze, mushrooming out of the reactor and fading to fiery shades of orange. The blast radius swept outward, uprooting trees, ripping stone houses from their foundations. The earth itself trembled, crackling and swallowing those poor sods who hadn’t run far enough.

Tseng watched. It was horrific. Awe-inspiring. A divine wrath of fire and split earth. It lit his eyes, stole his breath. 

He had done this.

He _could_ do this.

The steps had been taken. The boy had been secured, Avalanche dismantled. He had fulfilled Company directives despite the upsurge of unexpected obstacles.

The mission was a success.

\- - -

Ifalna felt the wave arrive.

She grappled for Aeris, who was lying in the couch beside her. She had to shield her daughter. So many dead. So many wailing souls. She curled around Aeris and cast a barrier around her with what little strength she had.

Then she closed her eyes and let it overtake her.

-

She was weaker than ever when Sephiroth found them. He had a katana sheathed at his belt, his eyes blazing as he pulled them off the couch.

_We’re going. We’re leaving._

Aeris was small, still. Barely ten years old. But she had remarkable strength and resilience for someone who rarely got any sunlight. As soon as he told them he was getting them out, she didn’t ask questions, only grabbed a bag and fetched their scant few personal items while Sephiroth helped her mother up.

The first thing Sephiroth did was break apart the tracking bracelets both women wore. Then he held Ifalna against him, her arm draped over his shoulders as they made their way through the corridors in the darkness, following the red lights that lit the floor.

They came to a door. Reno and Rude were meant to open it for them from the Turk headquarters. But the door was still locked. Sephiroth glared up at the security camera that stared down at them, heaved Ifalna against him more securely.

“What’s going on?” Aeris whispered. “I thought Tseng was meant to help us?”

Sephiroth sat Ifalna carefully against a wall. “I don’t know. Let’s give them five minutes.” 

-

_Don’t let them leave. The plan has changed. Everything’s changed._

Those were Tseng’s words. Rude stared at his open flip phone, then met Reno’s gaze. They were both in the security footage room, surrounded by screens, Reno hanging by the door on his way to the helicopters.

“Sir,” Rude said. “They’ve already left the common room.”

“Tell Sephiroth to bring them back. It’s a stupid plan. I need – we need more information before we go ahead with something like this.”

“Sir,” Rude insisted. “Ifalna – ”

“Veld defected,” Tseng barked down the line. “I have full responsibility over them now. We can’t just chuck them into a helicopter, it’s mad. I need to comb Veld’s files before I make any decisions about them.”

Reno’s eyes widened. “Veld _defected?”_

Rude frowned but stayed doggedly on topic: “Ifalna needs urgent medical attention.”

“Then call the med bay!” Tseng snapped. “Inform the president of Hojo’s mismanagement. She should be treated at the HQ. We don’t even know if she’d survive a helicopter ride. We don’t – Crisis, we don’t know anything, we couldn’t control anything once they got out of Midgar. This plan was hare-brained from the start. Abort, _now._ ”

The two young Turks stared at one another. Then at the screen where Sephiroth was pulling the materia-filled katana from its sheath, reading to break down the door.

“Let’s go get ‘em,” Reno said, and Rude clambered out of the desk chair, grabbing his gun.

\- - -


	8. Chapter 8

**\- - -**

_Midgar_

_[ present ]_

**\- - -**

One day, a boy fell through the roof of her church. A Soldier. She recognised his eyes straight away. They fraternised – she found him nice. He was a total stranger, and it wasn’t often that she could talk with Upworlders like him. Even Elmyra met him and found him to be quite a charmer.

He wasn’t a complicated kind of guy. He joked around a lot. It was easy to talk without talking. Sometimes Aeris wondered how she could feel like she shared anything at all with him, when their conversations revolved around nothing much.

Cissnei said to be herself.

Aeris sat on her bed in her room and thought about that.

She was sixteen. She didn’t quite know what it meant to “be herself”. Did she like this boy? Yes, he was all right. Was she excited about him? The deep glowing pit in her belly was. The rest, she wasn’t so sure.

What was there to be excited about? New experiences, perhaps. But she’d kissed boys before. She’d kissed men before. She’d had plenty of new experiences one after the other. In terms of flirty flings and kissing, she was set. And she didn’t want to go poking at anything more than that, physically speaking. No way. Not with a stranger. Those things… she wanted to keep for someone she knew. _Really_ knew.

She missed old experiences. Old acquaintances.

People who used to be around.

She missed long nights in a common room lit by blue lights, ringing with the laughter of rowdy boys, all older than her, all watching out for her because it was the decent thing to do. Not because they were bound by contracts. Not because they were _interested_ in that way. Just because they liked her. Plain and simple.

She missed open honesty, looking around to find people who knew her, knew what she suffered, knew what it meant to be in her shoes. People she had poured so much of herself into.

She wasn’t sure she had any more left of herself to pour.

Who was left? There were some slum friends who’d stuck around ever since she’d landed down here. She made sure she kept the other contacts alive, those precious few with whom she had a few years of history, even if she’d somewhat gone off some of them. The Turks never made themselves visible unless it was necessary nowadays. Rude and Reno evaded that rule sometimes, of course, but they wouldn’t invite her to the drinks they had in Wallmarket after a long night’s job. First, they were good boys now, they didn’t try to involve her in anything she shouldn’t be involved in. And second, they seemed even more up-to-date on Elmyra’s curfews than she was.

As for Tseng…

She tried not to think about him. She saw him sometimes, sure. But it wasn’t the same. Sometimes she would’ve preferred never to see him at all. It was so much worse now, exchanging formal messages, nodding at one another awkwardly like they were distant cousins or something. Cissnei must keep him up to date on her, but he wasn’t the type to bring up something he’d read in a report to her if she hadn’t mentioned it to him first.

There were no new private jokes. No new experiences they’d shared together. Nothing to talk about. It was stagnant and weird and she wondered sometimes if this is what girls went through when they broke up with someone they loved.

Having to watch them evolve without you. Having to go on growing and evolving without sharing any of it with them.

Missing out.

But perhaps it was all as it should be, because she was _entering a phase of life._

She sat in front of the mirror, leaned her elbows on the dresser and put her lipstick on.

-

Zack was a good kisser. She wondered whether that would go into the reports if she told Cissnei about it. But he seemed interested in going further, and she wondered if she might have to put a stop to it just so he wouldn’t get his hopes up.

He was fun, he was nice, but he wasn’t… he wasn’t close to her. He could never be closer to her like the people she’d grown up with. And maybe that wasn’t fair, but when it came to those types of things, Elmyra told her that she should listen to herself first.

One evening they were kicking around Wallmarket, laughing over a pair of caramel lollipops. Even as she laughed, she wondered whether she shouldn’t wrap it all up and cross it off as yet another adventure that went nowhere before he got too attached. Perhaps she should do it as soon as possible? She wasn’t in any hurry, but she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. He was nice. He didn’t deserve that.

And then Zack mentioned something.

There was a little ShinRa intra-department get-together happening up on the plate. Nothing too formal – a ballroom had been reserved, there would be music and a buffet. You were allowed to bring plus-ones. And when he mentioned who was going, one name cropped up.

Sephiroth.

The first thought that crossed her mind was, _ooh. That’s someone from before._

The second thought was, _no, you can’t do that to Zack. Don’t use him to get close to someone else._

But wasn’t he similarly in this for his own gain? Ultimately, he was flirting with her because he wanted to obtain something from her. What all men wanted. Intimacy. Something she had which he was negotiating for, date after date, kiss after kiss.

She wasn’t meant to think of it that way. She was meant to be excited, find it romantic, see his attentions as sweet and generous. But it was so difficult to get out of that mindset. Down here, you couldn’t do otherwise but think in these terms if only for your own protection.

“Do you want to come, then?” Zack asked, wearing that big boyish smile.

She smiled back at him. “Yes. Absolutely.”

-

She looked through her closet for some appropriate formalwear and found an old, silk-paper-wrapped package.

She had never opened it.

Sitting on her bed, she placed it in front of her. Her hands traced the strings that crossed over it, tied at the centre. The silk paper was crumpled now and bristled under the fingers.

Gaia. Just looking at it made her realise.

She was lonely.

So lonely.

Biting her lip, she carefully undid the string that Tseng had tied all those years ago. And she opened the package.

\- - -

Tseng had only come to this thing because Rude and Reno had insisted on it. There could be no intra-department companionship if the Director himself shirked off. They dragged him to the ballroom and then promptly deserted him while they got to laughing with several Seconds they’d recently gotten to know.

He drifted at the drinks stand, pouring himself some whisky and checking his watch. It had only been twenty minutes and already he was itching to leave.

When he looked up, he saw her.

But it couldn’t be her.

Ifalna.

Long chestnut hair, pulled back with a clip. The cream yukata hugging her curves, gold-thread flowers blooming over her hips and down the long sleeves. Just as he’d pictured when he’d bought it for her all those years ago. It suited her to perfection.

His back prickled. His throat was uncomfortably dry. But he blinked and the ghost faded, leaving the daughter in her stead. Aeris was on Zack’s arm, smiling at the Seconds that Zack was introducing her to. He’d never seen her interact with Soldiers other than Sephiroth – he wondered what the protocol was. Whether Hojo would allow it.

Zack was a kind enough boy. He seemed to make her laugh.

Tseng drank his whiskey. Let her have this evening. Then he’d make his inquiries. Hojo was adamant on receiving reports on her physical activity – it probably didn’t matter who she saw, only that it was all meticulously observed.

It was Cissnei’s duty now. It no longer concerned Tseng.

He involved himself in a few games of poker, a few conversations. His eye kept getting drawn away by a vision of cream and gold.

Aeris was a difficult girl to ignore.

Partway through the evening he turned his head and found her sitting on a couch, holding a champagne flute and smiling up at somebody. She’d ditched Zack somewhere – the boy’s voice resounded from one of the gambling tables.

Tseng’s gut clenched. She was alone in a den of Soldiers, Turks and other ShinRa officials. Protectiveness surged in him as he scanned the room for Cissnei. Was she watching? She had to be. It would reflect very badly on her performance if she let anything happen tonight.

Then a clump of men in formalwear moved out of the way, and Sephiroth came into view. He was seated on the couch armrest, his formal black blazer folded over his arm, eyes on Aeris. They were talking together – Sephiroth wore a rare smile as he indulged her. Those glowing turquoise eyes roamed over Aeris’s face whenever it was her turn to speak. She gestured in the air between them, bracelets clinking, reaching forward to touch Sephiroth’s arm whenever she got enthusiastic.

Tseng hadn’t seen her that eager and invested in a long time.

A very different sensation wriggled through Tseng’s gut at the sight of them. 

_(She used to talk like that with him.)_

Eventually Sephiroth gave her a signal – nodded away, invited her to take a walk with him. Aeris smiled, her cheeks faintly pink. 

Tseng watched them go while his insides squirmed. He drank, as though alcohol could kill whatever had awoken inside him.

She wasn’t his responsibility. Not on the ground. He oversaw Cissnei’s reports; he didn’t physically track her any more.

Let her go.

Let her _go._

-

There were files waiting on his desk that he’d left for later. He visualised them, focused on the work that lay ahead so he might not make any mistakes while he stayed here.

Zack was still yelling cheerfully in his gambling and card games with the other Seconds. Tseng couldn’t help but feel a certain pity for the man as he slid his blazer back on. Where Aeris was concerned, men were like waves battering against a rock – none of them seemed to hold her attention for very long.

Perhaps that was why her interest in Sephiroth made him uneasy. That man was no stranger to her. Tseng was sure her interest in him went much further than a young girl’s games.

It was while he was marching through the corridor leading to the exit that he glimpsed it. A half-open bay window. A curtain shielding the view of the balcony beyond.

The edge of a cream-gold yukata, fanning over the balcony rail.

Tseng approached. He knew what he was going to see.

He looked anyway. Just to be sure.

She was sitting on the rail. Her spine was arched, cotton folds following the line of her body up, up, outlining her eagerness as she clung to the man in her arms.

Sephiroth stood between her open thighs, one large hand on her waist, the other cupping her face. His mouth hovered over hers, red lip gloss smudged over both their chins.

The first thought that entered Tseng’s mind was, _she wore that yukata for him. For_ him.

The second thought was, _Zack._ _Zack is just inside. That girl is merciless._

And the third: _turn around and walk away._

Aeris opened her eyes, blinked up at the First Class. There was vulnerability in her expression. A deep, boundless need. Sephiroth stroked her face with his thumb. They exchanged hushed words, too quiet for Tseng to hear. She gave him a small smile, then tilted her chin up again and kissed him.

Zack’s voice resounded in the corridor. Tseng stepped away, turned to find the young Second walking right towards him, looking around himself.

“Zack!” Tseng called loudly. “Looking for someone?”

“Yeah. I lost Aeris somewhere. You seen her?”

“Yes, I think she was in the gardens back there.”

Zack gave him a deadpan look. Tseng was sending him to the other side of the ballroom. “Great. Thanks, man!” He turned and jogged away, as genial as always.

Tseng watched him go until he was out of sight. Then he turned and found Aeris walking through the bay window, one hand clutched to her chest, staring at the wall beyond which Zack had just disappeared.

Their eyes met. That blush rose to her cheeks again. She’d fixed her gloss, but there was still a shiny patch next to her mouth.

“You should be more careful,” Tseng told her.

A frown dented her brow as she debated whether or not to explain herself to him. He found that he didn’t care who she hurt or what she did. It been too long since they’d spoken for him to want to chastise her.

“Tseng,” she said. A greeting, a question, a complaint – he wasn’t sure. From the look on her face, she was waiting for him to tell her off. He offered her a small smile instead and nodded at her yukata.

“It suits you.”

She blinked down at her own sleeve, as though only just realising what she was wearing. What it meant to him. He’d never seen her hazy and lost for words like this.

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” she said in a small voice.

That wasn’t what he’d expected.

“Well, I was just leaving,” he told her, because he didn’t know what they were doing, what this weight in his chest was, what to do with it. “Will you be all right?”

“Yeah.”

He passed her as he left.

She smelled of Sephiroth’s cologne.

\- - -

Cissnei’s reports came in. She was seeing Sephiroth. Sometimes on the plate; sometimes down below. It wasn’t often, as Sephiroth didn’t exactly have many openings in his schedule.

But it was happening.

It wasn’t just one of Aeris’s disastrous experiments where she tried to be somebody she wasn’t, tried to borrow someone else’s agency for a moment, live someone else’s life if only for an evening. It was serious. Tseng wasn’t sure that Sephiroth would go in for anything less.

It was what Tseng had prescribed for her. Deeper relationships with people who weren’t her handlers. Coming into her own, no longer depending on the wrong people as emotional crutches.

But Sephiroth… surely he couldn’t possibly be the right person.

He was still a ShinRa man. Still someone heavily involved in war. He was far from having cleaner hands than Tseng or any of the Turks. And he was older than her – maybe not as much as Tseng, but it was still a sizeable gap.

That was what Tseng told himself as he stared at the reports. He blew on his cup of black coffee, sipped a little. It was inappropriate for a lot of reasons.

It wasn’t a question of jealousy. Tseng didn’t feel things like that. He was ultimately responsible for Aeris’s well-being. These decisions naturally came down to him. 

_(Sephiroth knew her almost as well as he did.)_

_(Sephiroth had never betrayed her.)_

_(The sight of them clinging to one another made him like he was falling into a bottomless pit.)_

( _He was losing her. He was losing her fast.)_

He crossed Sephiroth in a corridor one day. Both of them were busy – Tseng had freshly printed files in his hand, Sephiroth was spattered with purplish blood from whatever pest-control mission he’d just gotten back from.

“Sephiroth,” Tseng greeted him, slowing down. Sephiroth mimicked him, giving him a cursory glance, expecting him to spout a few mission-relevant lines and go on his way. “Can I talk to you?”

Sephiroth stopped, turned his full attention on the Director. “Yes?”

“It’s about your… relationship.”

The words were quiet. Tseng tried to keep the judgment out of them, but Sephiroth heard the notes of irritation. He cocked his eyebrow at the Director.

“What about it?”

“Don’t you think it’s inappropriate?”

Sephiroth gazed at him curiously. “Clearly you do.”

“She’s under my responsibility,” Tseng said.

“Mmm. Indeed. And you enjoy that, don’t you?”

Tseng bristled. “I don’t know what makes you say – ”

“You’re transparent, Tseng,” Sephiroth all but sneered. “I don’t know why nobody else sees it. But I do. You want to own that girl. You want to keep her carefully under your control. Just like everything else you’re personally responsible for.”

“I don’t own her.”

“And yet you act like you do.”

Sephiroth had a slippery way with words. Like a snake, he recoiled only to strike at the jugular.

No matter. Tseng already knew how to press Sephiroth’s buttons.

“I spoke to Hojo,” he said smoothly. “He’s very interested in the both of you entertaining a close relationship.”

A flash of horror flickered through Sephiroth’s glowing eyes. He stared at Tseng, alarmed, clearly disbelieving that the man would stoop so low.

“As I said,” Tseng added, his voice cloaked in velvet. “I only have Aeris’s best interests at heart. If you want to be kind to her, you won’t continue this. You won’t nurture any hope of normality or privacy when neither of you have those privileges.”

Turquoise was a cold, cold colour. Sephiroth pierced him through and through with the indignant glare he gave him. He stepped up to Tseng, raw magical energy shivering on the surface of his body, making goosebumps rise on Tseng’s neck.

Tseng stood his ground.

“One day, Aeris will discover how sick you really are,” Sephiroth hissed at him. “And I wonder how you’ll save your little situation then. _Director._ ”

He stepped back and went on his way.

Tseng watched him go, fingers clenched into fists.

\- - -

The reports came in. Several more interactions in public locations. Then nothing. Sephiroth had taken the threat to heart and left her alone.

New scrawled observations began punctuating Cissnei’s usual activity notations.

 _Spent the day inside._

_Spent evening with gun-crafters. M. purchased Mako dust and alcohol._

_Spent the day inside. Skipped work day at recycling plant._

_Contact. She’d hurt herself trying to take out tracker chip. Angry and moody._

Aeris wasn’t taking this well.

He knew he couldn’t count on Cissnei to bring Aeris’s spirits up. The two had never really hit it off. And Cissnei was more distant than he had been as per company policy. She wouldn’t be the one that Aeris would turn to for private matters like this.

Who could she turn to? Well, that was the crux of the issue, wasn’t it. Tseng had just figuratively shot down the one person she had found to confide in.

Tseng lit himself a cigarette. It was evening. Blue lights shone in between his open blinds, throwing stripes over his desk. He was listening to audio recordings from one of Rude’s agents, earbud in his ear, bored out of his mind, waiting for actual usable intelligence to surface amidst the people’s vapid conversation.

While he listened, he sat at his computer. Clicked through the tracking chip software. Clicked Aeris’s name.

A map of the Sector 6 slums appeared in green lines against a black background. He frowned, taking a long drag and blowing the smoke away from the screen. She was stationary, a small green dot amidst the industrial scrapyards of the area.

What was she doing out there? Her curfew was coming up soon. 

Pausing the recording, he grabbed his phone and called Cissnei.

“Are you on her right now?”

“No, but I’m nearby. Finishing up on that weapons dealing case.”

“Take your time. I’ll come down for her.”

“Oh. All right. Thank you, sir.”

-

She was a small red-clad figure in a mountain range of industrial junk. Broken robotics, pierced containment units, giant cooling pipes that coiled around everything like shining silver worms. Everywhere lay mounds of coiled black wire, like clumps of wild grass on a hilly landscape.

She wasn’t alone. A parody of a vanguard stood nearby, smoking and clinking beer bottles. Gun-crafters – Aeris’s latest idea of a nice crowd to spend time with. When Tseng approached they all turned, squaring their shoulders, preparing to protect their flowergirl. When they saw his blue suit they practically pissed themselves. But the bigger one persuaded the others to stand their ground, and they did so, staring goggle-eyed at Tseng like he was Death itself sweeping his way up to meet them.

“Good evening,” he said to them with a polite smile.

“What d’you want, then?” Big Guy said in a gruff voice. He had a knife sheath on his belt. Tseng’s eyes flickered down to it, then at his face.

“It’s all right,” Aeris called over to them.

They glanced back at their protégée and then reluctantly stepped aside. Fighting a smile, Tseng walked past them and gained Aeris’s side.

“I see you’ve got new bodyguards,” he said as he sat down next to her.

“Oh, don’t start,” she snapped. “They’re nice. Reliable. Unlike some people.”

She hadn’t even looked at him yet. She was glowering down at the oozing pit ahead, where junk scrappers were walking around salvaging bits and pieces.

“What’s on your mind?” Tseng asked. He was long used to these conversations where he asked something he already knew the answer to. But hearing it in Aeris’s voice was always more informative than reading it in a report.

She picked up a large rusted screw and threw it. It clunked on several broken arms of decade-old car-manufacturing robots.

“Sephiroth,” she muttered. “I thought we understood one another. I thought… I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Another screw. _Thunk, clatter, roll._

“What happened?”

This time she picked a full battery set. She lobbed it and it crashed into something glassy, breaking the silence with a crystalline _crunch_. 

“Apparently he has better things to do,” Aeris fumed. “I mean, of course he has better things to do than talk to me. Who’d want to be in a relationship with some girl who lives in the _slums?_ When he flies halfway round the world every week.”

“You’re not _some girl_. Sephiroth knows that.”

“Oh well I don’t know!” she said, her voice getting higher. “He probably didn’t think I was all that special if he could just – just – ” Tears broke down her cheeks. A rusted exhaust pipe went flying. “ – _uuurgh_!”

“What?”

She hugged her knees, wiping angrily at her cheeks. “I just thought what we had was way better than him breaking up with me over the phone,” she muttered, her voice breaking on the last words.

Tseng shuffled closer, wrapped an arm around her shoulders. However Sephiroth had behaved – ultimately, Tseng had done this. He had made her cry. But all he felt was relief at this confirmation that it was over, that it was broken.

_(That he had won.)_

“He’s a busy man,” he said. “Lots on his mind. I’m sure it’s just bad timing.”

“Yeah,” Aeris hiccupped. “Bad timing. Sure. More like he’s evolved – he’s had a life, he’s seen so much, done so much – and meanwhile I’m down here in the trash. Going nowhere.”

Old wounds stung as she said those words. Tseng was responsible for that, too. Here he was, an arm around her shoulders, comforting her for his own crimes. Both of them sitting in the situation that he had created.

He rubbed her shoulder. “Things will change,” he said as he always did. “Things will look up. You just have to be patient.”

Aeris sniffed. “I think I’ll just swear off men altogether,” she muttered. “I don’t know what made me think they were any kind of solution to anything.”

“What about Zack?”

She laughed. “Oh, he moved on ages ago. Bit of a short attention span.”

She found a screw and chucked it ahead. They watched it plunk down a row of steel containers, hitting a different note each time.

“Soldiers are like that,” Tseng said. “If you want something meaningful, I’m not sure they’re the best option.”

“Oh?” Aeris glanced up at him. “Then what would you _suggest?_ ”

Tseng smirked at her sarcastic tone. “Like you said. Maybe you just need a change of scenery. It’s when you’re not looking that the right people appear.”

It was Aeris’s turn to grin. “It’s amazing how much you sound like a women’s magazine sometimes.” Tseng laughed. “No, seriously. When did you become my agony aunt?”

“I’ve always been your agony aunt.”

“I don’t know about that. Rude was the one who was good at this sort of thing,” Aeris mused. “He must be rubbing off on you. I saw him the other day going around with some woman in Wallmarket.”

“Did you now. He must’ve omitted it from his reports.”

“Woops.” Aeris was grinning again. “I take it back. I didn’t see anything.”

They chucked several more bits of junk into the oozing pit, trying to see who had a longer range. Then, as the curfew hour trickled by, Aeris tipped against Tseng’s shoulder, wrapping her arms around his waist.

“I miss you,” she muttered.

He leaned his chin against the top of her head. Finally, guilt was surfacing. But it was distant and small compared to the roaring delight of being by her side. Being needed by her.

“I’m here,” he reminded her. “I’m always here.”

\- - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /jams out to Britney Spears' "Toxic"  
> All right! Starting from this point the updates will be less frequent. I have the next few "present" chapters written but still need to get the "memories" down. So expect maybe a biweekly updating schedule rather than every day. Hoping to finish this fic during November as my nanowrimo project is editing rather than writing, which makes me insane, so I need to actually write something on the side lol.   
> As always thanks so much for reading and commenting, you guys are the best!! xxx


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready for a 5k chapter of pure undiluted angst. :'D This is probably the longest chapter so far, the scenes literally kept adding themselves and I could do nothing to keep them contained. Added a very necessary tag that I can't believe I didn't include so do check it.  
> Also known as "the chapter where I tried to fix up a certain Canon Scene but it ran away with me and there's probably a thousand times too much pathos now" lol.  
> Thanks for reading <3

**\- - -**

_Midgar_

_[ memories ]_

**\- - -**

No one at the HQ slept that night.

Reno and Rude had finally overcome Sephiroth with the help of an entire squadron of Peacekeepers. They both sported severe injuries and were waiting in the med bay for Tseng to arrive. Sephiroth had been tranquillized and hauled to the labs. There was no describing the state of pure fury that Hojo was in.

Three of his most precious subjects, all compromised in the same night. Sephiroth had shown signs of mutiny as he grew into adolescence, but nothing as bad as this.

Ifalna and Aeris were gone.

Reno raged around in his hospital bed, cursing Sephiroth with every elaborate phrase he knew, jabbing fingers in the air. _If he had just listened – ! Bastard thinks he can just do what he wants –_

Tseng had to shout over him. _Where are they? Who have you put on them?_

Rude was in a more cooperative state. He was more anguished than angry. He told Tseng the names of the Turks that had followed in Ifalna’s wake. Tseng couldn’t imagine how that woman could’ve got out alone and slipped past surveillance – she was so weak.

But he knew from first-hand experience that survival instinct could turn even the most battered person ferocious.

Tseng called everyone who was on the case. Lazard had set Peacekeepers around the highways that led into the Wastelands. Every single car exiting Midgar would get checked until the girls were found. As for those Turks who had tailed them throughout the Plate – one after the other they gave him reports that ended in blasts of powerful magic and failure.

Ifalna. Damn it all to hell. Ifalna was too weak to be using magic! The more people he talked to, the icier the dread in the pit of his stomach.

Ifalna wasn’t going to survive. Not if she fought with every last ounce of life that was left in her.

He’d asked the Midgar railways to notify him if they saw two women who fit the description. When he got a call from them, he shot to the helipads with Reno and Rude at his side, as well as two of Hojo’s personal lab assistants.

A tentative spark of hope fought the dread. They were in the slums. That was manageable. He could just scoop them back out and get Ifalna to the labs immediately, no harm done.

-

When they got there, a group of red-clad railway workers were huddled around the stairs that led to the platform. Two were crouched over something; three others were standing, arms crossed, expressions grave.

On the stairs was a white sheet.

_No._

Tseng ran to meet them.

“What happened?” he asked as the others caught up to him. The crouching workers all stood to hail him. None of them spoke. 

_No. No._

The white sheet outlined a body. Swallowing, Tseng forced himself forward, crouched down beside it. Perhaps Ifalna had blasted a guard with Ancient magic, killed him, left him there. Perhaps… this wasn’t what he thought it was.

He lay a hand on the sheet. He couldn’t lift it.

“We found her there at the start of our shift,” the youngest of the workers said. “The midnight crew left early, they do that sometimes, they… they didn’t notify us of anything.”

“We didn’t know what to do,” another said.

It had to be done.

He had to lift the sheet.

Fist clenched on the coarse material, he folded it back, revealing the face beneath.

Ifalna was ash-white, eyelids drooping, mouth parted as though she had been whispering something. Her thick chestnut hair fell away in rich curls on the concrete.

Tseng stared. He felt nothing. This wasn’t real. It wasn’t her.

Diligently he pressed two fingers against her neck. The skin was cold.

There was no pulse.

“Was there…” Tseng swallowed hard, his mouth dry as sand. This couldn’t be happening. “Was there a girl with her?”

“I didn’t see, sir,” the youngest said, the others agreeing. “We didn’t see nobody. She was jus’ lying there.”

“Yeah. Jus’ lying there,” another corroborated.

Tseng straightened, glanced up at the lamppost beyond where an old security camera was fixed.

“Take me to your office,” he said. “Reno, Rude – stay here.”

Both Turks huddled around Ifalna. They were quieter than Tseng had ever seen them. Jaw set firm, he turned on his heel and followed the railway workers to the small station building.

The two lab assistants flanked him.

“Sir,” they said. “Begging your pardon, but we have orders – ”

“You will do nothing until you have my authorisation,” Tseng told them, his voice ice-cold.

“Very sorry, sir, but her body does not fall under your jurisdiction.”

That made Tseng stop in his tracks. He turned, looked at the faces of these two men, these _rats_ who thought they could supplant his authority.

They no longer had that luxury. He was Director now. Did they even realise what he was capable of? He could make them do whatever the fuck he pleased.

He could kill them right here in cold blood. As they deserved.

How _dare they._

He breathed out slowly. Then he called, “Rude!”

“Sir,” Rude called back. The lab assistants blanched as Rude’s heavy footsteps reached them.

“Make sure these two don’t go anywhere,” Tseng said. “They aren’t to call anyone. They aren’t to do anything until I come back.”

Rude squared his considerable shoulders and jerked his head at the queasy-looking lab assistants. “Come on.”

-

The footage was pixelated and greyish. Soundless. A train came in, frame by frame. The doors swished open, letting out the slew of travellers.

Once everyone had gone, a woman staggered out. A girl clung to her side.

Tseng hoped even as he watched the footage, hoped she would make it down the stairs, hoped someone would come and help her. But she fell in a soundless succession of frames, and then lay there motionless while the little girl ran around her.

Tseng ground his teeth. His body was a vast emptiness save for the burn in his throat, the burn in his eyes.

He watched, waiting, waiting for someone to arrive, waiting to see what the little girl would do other than run around the woman and shake her. It was taking so long. The little girl ran out of frame sometimes only to return, inevitably, to her dying mother’s side.

He had to keep watching.

At long last, a woman in a green dress appeared in the frame. Tseng’s whole body tensed as he watched, like a bloodhound on a scent. The woman knelt by Ifalna’s side, took Aeris into her arms. Ifalna’s head turned as though she was speaking. Then, after a long time persuading Aeris to leave her mother’s side, the woman hoisted her up in her arms and walked away.

Tseng paused the frame, checked to see if the dusty old printer was hooked up to the computer before asking the workers, “That woman – do you know her?”

“Wait – I think I do!” the younger one said. “She’s the one who keeps coming day after day. Isn’t she? The one who’s waiting for her husband to come back from Wutai.”

“Oh yeah!” another one said.

“Oh, she’s that sweet middle-aged woman, yeah,” said another. “What was her name again? She came with friends one time and we got to talking while waiting for the train.”

“Wasn’t it Mimi? I think her friends called her Mimi.” 

Tseng could’ve yelled at them.

“Her full name?” he asked them patiently. “Do you know it?”

“Oh hang on, it was Elmyra, wasn’t it?”

“Yes! Elmyra. Not sure about her last name though.”

Tseng busied himself by printing several close-ups while the workers wasted precious time flipping through their paper records (paper records! Who still kept paper records of things like this, Tseng raged to himself). She had definitely purchased tickets before, they told him.

Then at last, a finger jabbed down on an old yellowing page. Full name and address.

Prints in hand, Tseng checked the map of the slums that was pinned to the station wall, fingers following the tiny writing as he tried to find the road in question. A small canal was marked, a dot right next to it underlined by the scrawled canal name.

Aeris was there. Waiting for him. 

He stared sightlessly at the map.

Sephiroth must’ve told them that the Turks would help them escape. She would think he had abandoned them both. And now he was coming to fetch her, smuggle her quietly back up to the HQ where she would be locked up again. At least, until he could find another arrangement for her. He wanted her to be free from the HQ, he wanted that more than anything. But how could he explain it to her? Now, after he had betrayed her trust, after her mother had taken the fall for his mistakes?

What could he even say to her?

He had grown up in the same jail as her. And now that he had stepped out, he was becoming her jailor. That’s how she would see it.

Bootlicker. ShinRa man.

Murderer.

He shook the thoughts from his mind. Ifalna was on the steps of the platform. He had a duty towards that woman, first.

He asked the railway workers for their phonebook. A bit of searching and he found the number of the nearest morgue. He pressed his phone against his ear and made the call.

Outside on the station platform, Rude and Reno were waiting for orders. As soon as they saw him emerge, they and the lab assistants all turned to greet him.

“So?” Reno asked. Tseng reached them, giving them both a pointed look.

“Rude, you’ll stay here and wait, someone’s coming to pick her up. You’ll escort them and tell them they must keep her and use utmost discretion until I call them. Reno, you’ll escort Hojo’s assistants back up to the plate.”

Immediately the assistants protested, telling him again that they had a job to do, that they couldn’t possibly return empty handed. Tseng gazed at them with narrowed eyes.

When he spoke to them, he did so with a deathly quiet voice. “We came down here tonight and found that Ifalna’s body was missing. That is what you’ll tell Hojo. Please remember that I can find out anything,” he added over their protests. “Anything about your lives. Your families. As Director, you both know I am exempt from observing strict Midgarian law. I can make anything happen to you.”

They stared at him in disbelief.

“Am I making myself clear?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

-

Elmyra Gainsborough had a rather nice house by Sector 4 standards. The water canal served as freshwater supply for some up the classier Wallmarket places, so it didn’t stink of stagnant water like many other watering holes down here.

Tseng came up to the front door. Took a deep breath. Knocked with a gloved hand.

A middle-aged woman with pale blond hair opened. She took in the suit, the gravitas of his expression.

“Ma’am,” he said.

No backing out now.

“You’re a Turk?” the woman asked apprehensively.

“Yes. Don’t worry, you’re not in any kind of trouble. Only, earlier this evening you retrieved a young girl from the train station – ”

There were noises from within. Feet clattering down a creaky staircase. Elmyra looked back over her shoulder, worried, as though she’d been pondering whether to hide the child.

Tseng met her gaze and nodded at her. “Can I come in?”

Frowning, clearly confused, Elmyra stepped back and allowed him inside.

Aeris was standing next to the kitchen chairs, holding onto one of them. She stared up at Tseng, her face white, her eyes so wide and fearful that all he wanted was to stride in there and give her a hug.

“Aeris,” he said tentatively.

The fear in her face turned to accusation. He could no longer look at her. His eyes glanced off as though he were staring at the sun, landing instead on Elmyra.

“Aeris is a ward of ShinRa,” he said, his tone firm. “We want you to return her to us.”

Aeris was shouting before Elmyra could even speak. “No! Never!”

“I’m sorry,” Elmyra said, her hand on Aeris’s shoulder. “But why was she alone out there?”

“She and her mother ran away.”

“From where?”

“The ShinRa headquarters,” Tseng said. “She has living arrangements there. She is invaluable to the company.”

“How? She’s only a child.”

Tseng could feel the indignation of betrayal radiating off of Aeris even without looking at her. He breathed out to try and untangle his nerves, then said, “Aeris is a very special child. The reasons for President Shinra’s interest in her are classified, but it has to do with his plans for the future of Midgar and the slums. She has a very important role to play in the evolution of the company and its humanitarian interests.”

Elmyra was wearing a distrustful frown. “I’m sorry, but President Shinra needing a little girl for anything at all? Sounds dubious to me. If you can’t give me a good reason – ”

“Ma’am.” That she would even _suggest_ that he’d sanction something like that – dragging Aeris back to the HQ for – he didn’t even want to think about it. He tried to calm his nerves again with a deep breath. Glancing down at Aeris, he found her clutching her chair determinedly, glaring at him from under her brow. Like she was willing him not to say it.

He said it anyway: “She knows things that normal children do not. She is of Ancient lineage.” 

“He’s wrong!” Aeris burst out. “I’m not an Ancient! I’m not!”

“But Aeris,” he said for Elmyra’s benefit, “surely you hear voices sometimes when you’re all alone?”

“No! I don’t!”

Elmyra looked between them. Tseng wondered if it looked as obvious as it felt to him. His and Aeris’s friendship shattering to pieces. His duty overtaking whatever cares he would’ve normally taken with her, whatever reaction would’ve come naturally to him.

He should be kneeling next to her, holding her, telling her he was sorry about Ifalna. He should be assuring her that he’d be there for her, that it had all been a horrible misunderstanding, that he never wanted any of this to happen. Ifalna hadn’t deserved this. To die alone on the steps of an empty train station… to die in front of her only daughter. Tseng could only imagine the distress Ifalna must’ve felt, the fear of having to leave Aeris all alone in a stranger’s hands.

Instead he had to be the Director. Pragmatic. Clean things up first, leave room for emotion later.

“Mrs Gainsborough,” Tseng said, finally ripping his eyes from Aeris’s stricken face to look at the much more manageable sight that was this woman. “Can I speak with you privately?”

Elmyra knelt by Aeris’s side, did all the things Tseng would’ve wanted to do. Squeezed her shoulders. Told her it would be all right. That she should go upstairs to have a rest while the adults talked. That she’d be up right afterwards to join her.

Aeris went upstairs.

Tseng watched her go. The numbness endured. In a way it was a blessing – he couldn’t have done any of this if the fog scattered and lay his emotions bare.

Elmyra crossed her arms, watching him, waiting for the explanation.

Tseng took in a breath, calculating how much he could divulge. He closed his eyes. This was sensitive in every way. Empathy and understanding were key.

Maybe… maybe he could use this meddling woman to his advantage.

“My department made a mistake,” he told her. He hoped Aeris was on the landing, listening in. “We were meant to send those two out to a more secure place where they could be better managed and live freer lives. But things changed, orders changed. There was miscommunication between departments. And the two of them were left to fend for themselves.” He sighed. “It’s difficult to explain while omitting the details, but you’ll understand – I’m not permitted to say everything.”

“Of course,” Elmyra said vaguely, prompting him to continue.

“This has all happened very fast,” Tseng went on. “I’m not sure what the best course of action is right now. But the most important element of this whole situation is Aeris.” He paused, took her in for a moment. “I understand you’re a married woman?”

“Yes. I am.”

“And you live here alone while your husband is in Wutai?”

“He should be coming back on leave anytime now.”

“He would not protest if you were to keep Aeris with you for a little while?”

Elmyra blinked at him. “Why?”

Tseng reached into his blazer, took out his wallet. Under Elmyra’s eyes, he began to count 100-Gil notes. “It shouldn’t take me too long to straighten this out. But in the meantime, if you’d like to help me… Aeris could stay you with until I’ve asked all the questions I need to ask.”

He brandished the thick curl of notes. Elmyra looked between the money and him, alarmed.

“You would just leave her with a stranger? Just like that? When she’s so important to you?”

“I’ve been doing this work for a long time, ma’am,” Tseng told her. “I know how to take the measure of a person. You’re good. You care enough about Aeris to try and protect her even from me. And from the looks of things, you obviously keep a good home too. You’re a suitable candidate.”

Elmyra only frowned. “But… you came in here asking me to give her up.”

Tseng sighed. “By rights, I should take her straight back up. The President expects me to do that. But I don’t know what they plan to do with her exactly, in terms of her living arrangements. I don’t want to drag her into an even worse situation when I could potentially salvage things, given more time to do so. She would be well hidden down here, if you accept to help me.”

“Of course I can keep her,” she said slowly. “If that’s all right with her.”

Tseng nodded, brandishing the notes again. “Good.”

“You don’t have to give me money.”

“Take it anyway.” He left it on the dining room table, along with a card. “You call me if anything comes up. I’ll be in touch with you as soon as possible. A few days at most.”

-

One dilapidated phone box stood on the edge of the Wallmarket district. Tseng pushed the graffitied door wider open, wedged himself inside. Composed the number on the tiny slip of paper that Veld had left him.

Ifalna’s white face was there in the front of his mind, growing only clearer when he closed his eyes. That white mouth opened wider, whispering, accusing.

He pressed the battered plastic phone against his ear. His hands were clammy, his throat tight. He forced himself to think of the extra work he was adding for himself. Having the phone operators contact his department about a suspicious phonecall. Having to be the one to erase all evidence that it ever happened.

The line opened.

“Hello?” said Veld.

“Sir,” Tseng breathed out. “I’ve fucked up.”

-

He didn’t go back down to the slums until he had good news to tell Aeris.

Well. “Good” being a relative term.

Once Veld had given him all the ammunition to handle the ShinRa Board regarding her situation, once he had dealt with them and miraculously got them to agree to more freedom for her – he travelled back down.

Standing on Elmyra’s doorstep was just as hard as before. He raised his fist to knock.

Elmyra opened. Nodded at him in greeting, invited him in. She looked curious as he dithered by her dining room table. The place was just as clean and inviting as it had been before.

“I’ve secured a potential arrangement for her,” he told her. It was easier to just show her the paperwork than say the words out of the blue. He placed his briefcase on the table, took out a contract. Stapled to it was a blank adoption form. “It would make this arrangement permanent, if you’re interested in fostering her.”

Elmyra stared at the document, lost for words.

“Well, yes, I’m… I’m interested.”

“I’ll leave you the time to read through it,” Tseng said. “Please jot down any questions you have as you go through it. In the meantime, I’d like to go and talk to Aeris about this, if that’s all right.”

Eyes still on the contract, Elmyra sat at her kitchen table. “She’s in her room,” she said faintly. Tseng went to the stairs before she stopped him. “Wait.”

He glanced at her. She seemed to be struggling with herself.

“My husband never came back,” she said. “Am I a less suitable candidate as a widow?”

That softened him somewhat. She clearly strove to come across as appropriate, regardless of how much it must have hurt her to say those words.

“We trust you,” he said. “You’re the one who took Aeris in. You’re the one who’s taken care of her so far and proved to my department that you’re up to the task. I would’ve had to run extra checks after your husband returned, so. In a way, it’s simpler like this.”

Perhaps that had been callous. But Elmyra only nodded, her face carefully expressionless.

“You will of course have to notify us if your situation changes,” Tseng added.

“Yes, of course. I understand. Thank you.”

She bent over the paperwork, giving him leave to climb up the stairs. He swallowed down his nervousness and took them two at a time.

-

Aeris did not want to talk to him.

The bedroom door was closed. She knew he was here, she’d heard him, no mistake.

Tseng stood in front of that closed door and spoke anyway. “Aeris? It’s me.”

No reply.

“I spoke to the ShinRa board,” he said. It was easier to stay on track. “They said you could stay with Mrs Gainsborough instead of having to come back up to the HQ.”

No reply.

“Would you like to stay with her?” he asked. “Do you like her?”

“You’re not taking me back up, then?” came Aeris’s small voice.

Relief flooded through him at the sound of it. It came from far below him, like she was sitting at the foot of the door. Tseng knelt down on the floorboards so he could be at her level.

“No,” he said. He swallowed hard. “No. I never wanted to bring you back up. When I came here the other day – I panicked. I said the wrong things.”

“You told her who I was,” Aeris muttered. “Without even asking me first.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” He stared at the door. “I was trying to keep the situation under control.”

A pause. She didn’t know he’d been made Director. But the more he tried to explain himself, the more it felt like a pack of sorry excuses. She deserved better.

She deserved to have her mother back.

Tseng picked at a loose thread on his pressed trousers, waiting for her to say something.

“Sephiroth said you’d help us get out,” she said. “That there was a safehouse waiting for us somewhere. We would have a new life. Why did you abandon us?”

Tseng closed his eyes. Ifalna’s face floated before him, glassy purple eyes fixed on him. “It should’ve happened that way,” he said. “But I was afraid Ifalna wouldn’t survive the trip. I asked Rude and Reno to bring you back up to the common room so we could take care of her before you left. But Sephiroth wouldn’t cooperate.”

“So you’re saying it’s Sephiroth’s fault?”

“No. It’s mine.”

Silence. A white sheet stretched over his mind, cloud-like, suffocating.

“I should’ve let you go,” he said.

Aeris didn’t say anything for a long time. He wondered if she was debating whether or not to forgive him. There was no reason for her to forgive him. But she had always had far too big of a heart. She should be angry at him, she should go on shouting at him – not sit on the other side of a door like this and let him spew all his pathetic excuses.

“What happened to Mum?” Aeris asked, her voice very quiet now. “Mrs Gainsborough brought me back to the train station and she wasn’t there any more.”

Tseng breathed in. “I hid her down here in Sector 4,” he told her. “Hojo wanted her back but I kept her safe from him. I filed a report stating she passed away and was lost to the junkyards. No one is looking for her now.”

He’d wanted to meander carefully into this part of the conversation – nothing was more repugnant than the idea of talking about body preservation and funerals with a ten-year-old girl. But Aeris went straight to the point.

“Can I see her?”

“You can, yes. Of course. But it’ll have to be soon,” he said. “Aeris, I held onto her because…” He swallowed, trying to wet his dry throat. “Because I thought maybe you’d like to choose where to bury her.”

Silence.

Then, the creak of a handle. Aeris pulled open the door, stood before him. Her eyes were red, her mouth a wobbly line. She looked exhausted, her unkempt hair framing her face in wild curls. 

“You promise you’re not taking me back up, then?” she muttered.

“I promise,” he said. “Elmyra’s looking at the paperwork now. If you want her to become your foster mother… I can make that happen.”

She frowned in concentration. “You mean I’ll live here forever?”

“Well, I can’t speak to forever. But for the foreseeable future, yes.”

A tiny speck of hope lighted in her eyes. She nodded. “I’d like that,” she said. “I do like Mrs Gainsborough.”

“That’s good. We can go down and talk about it with her.”

She fiddled with the door a moment. Then she stepped up to him and wrapped her arms around his neck, tugging at his long black hair. Tseng held onto her around the waist, frowning into her unkempt curls, speechless before her magnanimity.

He allowed it for a moment – allowed himself to feel, to join her in her grief. To think of Ifalna and let the absence of her fill him. He knew he had no right to grieve when he was the culprit, he was the reason she’d died. But somewhere underneath the strict discipline that had been hammered into him, there was still that lonely boy that Ifalna had taken into her arms, the one she had laughed with and counted constellations with. So often they’d spoken together of the future, of how things might look up one day. He couldn’t stand the idea of her not being there any more to nurture their hopes and tell him it would all be all right.

One day.

“Let’s go,” Aeris said, taking his hand. He straightened and let her pull him down the stairs, hoping his voice would come back by the time they got to the kitchen table. 

-

It was a testament to Aeris’s extremely sheltered life that she didn’t even ask him why she couldn’t be fostered somewhere better than the Midgar slums, why he couldn’t send her to Kalm or the plate or literally anywhere better than Sector 4. Elmyra’s house and the idea of being able to roam around freely was such a vast improvement for her that she took it without question.

The slums were a compromise between ShinRa’s wishes that she stay close and manageable, and Tseng’s own wishes that she be free. If he truly wanted to, he could work to smuggle her out of here for good. It required a whole lot of work and organisation of course, but he had enough power now to make it happen.

But it meant mutiny. It meant potentially losing those powers even as he made use of them.

While Aeris didn’t ask for anything more… he allowed her to make her choices. He told himself he’d be more useful to her if he held onto these powers that had been vested in him.

He didn’t want any more chaotic situations like this. From now on, he was in control.

-

Elmyra came with them, exploring the slums to find an appropriate place. When they found the old church looming out of the scrapyards, Aeris was smitten. It was quite empty, and with a bit of cleaning up, it’d make a perfect place for quiet recollection.

Tseng made the necessary arrangements with the morgue. They drove out to the church and deposited Ifalna in her thin wooden casket. A few hundred Gil and they turned a blind eye to the funeral site – it wasn’t exactly legal to bury a body just anywhere like this, especially down here.

Elmyra had brought some of her friends over to help with the process. The husbands all crowded around the casket, offering to help Tseng carry it inside.

He thought he would be alone to supervise the whole thing. He thought he and Aeris would bury her together, privately. But Elmyra’s presence there with the slum women and their husbands brought a liveliness to the ordeal that he was grateful for. From the look on Aeris’s face, he could tell that she was glad for it too.

It gave him hope that perhaps it wasn’t such a terrible idea, leaving her down here in a place like this. There were decent people here, people who knew hardships that Upworlders didn’t. Perhaps they’d bring Aeris the type of solidarity and community she needed.

A table was set, meals brought out. The husbands helped Tseng to dig a hole in the nave of the church, where the floorboards had been ripped out.

Elmyra carefully opened the casket. Within, Ifalna was completely wrapped in white, the shape of her body visible but not her features. Elmyra and her friends dressed the body with flowers and then left her alone.

Aeris stayed by her for a long time.

When came the time to bury her proper, Tseng knelt by Aeris’s side to ask her how she’d like them to do it. They could lower her in like this, in the casket. Or they could put her in the earth just as she was, wrapped in a white shroud.

Aeris stared down at the white face.

“Take her out of the box,” she said. Then, turning to Tseng; “Can you ask everyone to go?”

Tseng nodded.

-

They were alone in the church.

Tseng lay Ifalna down next to the hole, hopped in himself, then pulled her carefully into his arms again.

Aeris watched as he fitted her in the hole, placing her on her side with her knees bent. It seemed more natural this way. He glanced up at Aeris and she nodded at him. _Good._

He clambered out again and sat on the edge of the grave with Aeris, staring down at the shrouded figure. Silence filled the church. All around them, dust motes drifted in the neon lights that shone in through the broken windows.

“Do you want to drop the flowers in?” Tseng asked her.

“Oh. Right.” She went to catch an armful of flowers, and he watched as she threw them in one by one, multicoloured lilies floating down to land around Ifalna peacefully as ever.

He should pay homage, too. 

He reached up, pulled his hair out of its bun. Aeris watched as he sifted through the inky black lengths as they fell straight down his back. He had never cut it – when he wore it down it reached his lower back.

His fingers worked quickly, braiding it from the top of his skull all the way down. When he slid his army knife out of his inside pocket and popped out the scissors, Aeris realised what he was about to do.

“You can’t,” she said. “You can’t cut off all your hair.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Why not?”

She managed to smile. “You’ll look funny with short hair.”

“Probably. It’ll grow back.” He started bringing the scissors closer so she pounced on him, trying to wrest the army knife off him. “What, you want to do it for me?”

“No I don’t! It’s your hair, you can’t cut it off,” she said again, but she looked at his braid with a fascinated sort of air. He let her have the scissors and she held them loosely, still staring, wondering whether to commit such a forbidden thing.

“Go ahead.”

With a nervous smile she approached the base of the braid. She twitched away again a few times, not daring to rob him of the braid that spanned the length of his spine, a lifetime’s worth of memories.

“Go on.”

At last, the first snip cut through a section of it. She gasped and then snipped again, more decisively this time.

The weight of his hair fell away. Immediately a mess of short strands fell into his face and around his neck.

Aeris held the long black coil in her hand, scissors in the other. When he turned to look at her, scraping his messy jaw-length hair out of the way so he could actually see her, she laughed.

“You look like a punk!”

“Well, I suppose there are worse looks,” he said with a grin.

She gave him the braid and he twisted it into a glossy black spiral. Aeris stood beside him and watched as he let it fall into the grave, landing at Ifalna’s feet, nestled in a bed of lilies.

\- - -


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, fuck it. I was going to release these chapters one by one to potentially get your comments on each one individually, but I'm getting severe executive dysfunction from working on this fanfiction + my novel at the same time so, I'm gonna put all these up and then the fic is going on hiatus.   
> Sorry guys. I just made commitments to my original shit and I can't write this while delaying those commitments any longer or my head will explode. I need to just stow this fic away and pretend it doesn't exist until my novel is done otherwise I will go batshit. :')  
> Enjoy!

**\- - -**

_Midgar_

_[ present ]_

**\- - -**

Cissnei was calling him at two in the morning again. The entire department was busy with the Genesis disaster – ever since Genesis had defected, nobody had sensible sleeping schedules any more, and everybody had their phone on 24/7. An unfortunate side-effect of this was that Cissnei was on him _all the time._

Tseng had just finished a rather brutal altercation with a couple of burly men who wouldn’t relent a lead regarding Hollander’s location. Rude and a few Seconds had been sent on once he’d got them to cough out the information. He just about had the luxury of entering his office and sitting a single arse cheek on his leather chair before Cissnei interrupted him.

He sighed, flipped open his phone with aching, bloody hands, and pressed it to his ear.

“Sir!” she blurted. “Sorry to bother you, sir.”

“No bother,” Tseng said. “Except if this is about Aeris again.”

“I’m – she’s – she’s being difficult, sir.”

“No surprise there.” He tried not to let Cissnei hear his own concern. Aeris had gone somewhat feral since he’d last had a direct hand in her life. It had been at least a few months since he’d last seen her, but Cissnei kept reminding him that she was still spinning away like she was a spinning top he’d set off himself.

“She dug out her tracking chip,” Cissnei said. “Last known location was the train station. I’ve notified the others, Reno said he’d get his copter out to do a check of the highways and toll boths, just to notify - ”

Tseng sighed. “Cissnei. Calm down. This isn’t the first time she’s done this, remember. So far she hasn’t tried to skip town and head out to the wastelands. I don’t think she’s out to do that tonight either.”

“But, sir - ”

“Good to know you gave Reno an excuse to shirk his duties and go flying for a few hours,” he went on with a smirk. “I’m sure he’s thrilled.”

“But – you said – ”

“I know. You did the right thing, don’t worry. But she’s a seventeen year old girl. She probably just snuck up to the plate for a drink and a laugh again.” That’s what it had been the last time. He didn’t even want to think about that night, the drunken hollering from the pack of slum punks she called friends, the fishnet tights she’d been wearing under her pink baby-doll dress. Elmyra had a fit when he dragged her back home. “Relax. I’ll look for her on the plate. You help Reno secure the exits.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir!”

-

He bandaged his bloody knuckles, slipped leather gloves over them. There was nothing he could do about the bruises around his right eye, the cut lip. Shouldering a leather jacket, he took his car keys and locked the office door.

It was easy enough to track her down with Cissnei’s extensive reports. Over the past year Aeris had nurtured relationships with a regular group of slummers who took her places, taught her things, influenced her interests and her attitude. Not all of them had a positive influence on her, however.

Tonight they’d brought her up to the plate with fake ID. Tseng checked with the station – there had been an incident of ID detection, and a group of youngsters had scrambled out onto the rails, determined to climb up themselves.

Most of the time he had a grudging admiration for the determination of slummers. Right now though, he could drag them all through hell for encouraging Aeris to put herself in danger and cut into herself to take out her chip, all for the sake of defiance.

Cissnei had reported one best friend – a dark brunette named Luna. A detailed profile listed the girl’s interests, criminal record, haphazard sightings. She was into punk and garage music. Among Aeris’s latest birthday gifts were several abysmal-looking punk CDs and a Walkman.

A few quick checks and he knew exactly where to go.

-

The band was quite well-known. Not that Tseng cared for this type of music. Stragglers lingered around the concert hall where they were performing, singing along and holding up beers to the widescreens that showed what was happening inside. The music was loud enough to spread through the whole neighbourhood.

Hands in his pockets, Tseng scanned the crowd. It took at least some wandering and squinting between lines of staggering bodies to finally find her.

Aeris had her arm around Luna’s shoulders. Both were part of a long line of drunks who sang the song chorus at the top of their lungs. Tseng couldn’t help smiling as he watched Aeris tilt her head back and shout the lyrics like the others.

It didn’t seem like her scene. Maybe she was trying to branch out, discover what her friends enjoyed. Or maybe he had misjudged her all this time and she enjoyed punk music. Tseng watched for a moment, loathe to interrupt her when she was clearly having a good time.

It felt strange that this sort of thing was still happening all over the city, innocent get-togethers, concerts, cultural events. He’d been up to his eyebrows in work because of this clone clusterfuck, so he routinely forgot that the rest of the world kept on living. He stood there observing this bubble of noise and laughter, an outsider looking in.

When the song ended, Aeris and Luna detached themselves from the crowd. Tseng lifted his chin – now was the moment, before they got riled up again. But Luna did something – grabbed Aeris by her red denim jacket, pressed her up against a nearby parked car. They grinned one another – one girl’s thigh parted the other one’s – and they kissed one another hungrily, drunkenly, hands sinking in one another’s hair.

Tseng blinked. Then turned his head, leaving them what little privacy he could.

Now that was something Cissnei had left out of her reports.

The girl was the same age as Aeris, her record not too rough around the edges other than some petty theft. It was a relief that Aeris had chosen her, knowing the crowds she frequented. Tseng made himself scarce, waiting for them to finish.

Eventually Luna broke away from the embrace and pulled Aeris back towards the crowd. It was when Aeris scanned the clusters of drunks that she spotted him. She faltered in her steps. Luna leaned closer, both girls shouting in one another’s ears over the music. Then they separated, and Aeris made her way towards him under Luna’s confused eye.

Tseng went through her usual repertoire of questionable wardrobe decisions. Short pink dress with loveheart neckline. An array of necklaces that dropped down into her cleavage, inviting the eye. One of them sported a large red strawberry, which seemed a rather obvious innuendo. And to finish, white tights that may or may not have been intentionally ripped up. The only sensible thing about her outfit were the steel-toed boots.

This time he had come prepared. He held up a bag at her as she approached. Her face was scrunched in a kind of wince, as though she were expecting him to start telling her off. Or maybe it was the awful song that had just started up, blaring in their ears.

“You know Elmyra’s waiting on the porch with her pea-gun,” he called. “I brought some sensible clothes for you. Just to limit the damage.”

That won him a smile. Aeris reached him, slicking back her big poofy hairstyle. It writhed around her in ripples – she’d made many small braids and then freed them to add volume. It was all the rage these days.

“Am I in trouble?” she asked him. She wore a half-smile as she said it – she still hadn’t lost that reckless streak, clearly. Tseng sighed and shook his head at her, hoping that would suffice to communicate his feelings.

“Let me see your arm,” he said, gesturing at her left. She lifted it for him, so he pulled up her sleeve to find the hastily secured bandage around her upper forearm where her chip had been. Wordlessly, she let him rip off the staple that held it together just to wind it up again more securely.

“You’d hurt yourself for a punk concert?” he muttered.

“You’ve hurt yourself for stupider things,” she countered. As he worked, she lifted her free hand and touched the bruising on his face. “Does that have something to do with the lockdowns on the east side of the plate?”

He glanced at those glittering green eyes, how they turned gold in the streetlights. “You could be a Turk with how easily you pick up information. We barely implemented that a couple of hours ago.”

She smirked. “I’d make a better Turk than _Cissnei_ , that’s for certain.”

“Aeris. You know she’s only looking out for you. You should be nicer to her.”

She watched him tie the knot. “Wonder what’s even the use of her when you know exactly where I am even without the chip.”

“I know where you are, because I know _you_ ,” Tseng said. “Cissnei will get there in time. Now. Where do you want your new chip?”

The humour left Aeris’s face. “You brought the gun with you?”

“Naturally. Can’t have you haring off to Kalm in the middle of the night with no one noticing.”

Aeris sighed, rolling her eyes. This was the fifth time he’d replaced her tracking chip. By now the whole process was an annoyance to her rather than a matter of freedom and bodily autonomy. She turned her arm over, baring the delicate vein.

“The same arm? You sure you want this arm to become a Swiss cheese?”

“I won’t take it out,” she sulked. Then she glanced up at him with a glint of mischief. “Not tonight, anyway.”

He held that gaze coolly, trying to communicate how deeply unimpressed he was. He wagered he was probably failing – he was too stupidly pleased to see her to be much use as a figure of authority.

He took her arm more firmly, angled the chip gun. The chip went in with a blunt hiss _,_ making Aeris wince. He rubbed a thumb over her chip and took out his flip phone, making sure the signal was clear.

“You look healthy,” he said as he clicked through his phone software. “Luna seems like a nice girl.”

“Yeah,” Aeris scoffed. “Like you don’t have a whole file on her just to make sure she isn’t a bad influence.”

Tseng raised his eyebrows at her.

“That’s Cissnei’s department,” he said. “I’ve been too busy to monitor your disastrous socialising habits. Though, I will admit,” he added, “You’ve improved. Punks are a safer option than the gun-crafter gangs.”

“Oh, well thanks,” Aeris said with a smirk. “Glad to hear Cissnei’s noted down some _positive improvements._ ”

“I never doubted you’d be capable of them.”

“Well with you out of the way, you’ll find I’ve blossomed quite a bit.”

“Is that so?”

She was goading him. When he afforded her a small smirk she positively glowed with the victory of it. He’d forgotten how her face lit up when she won a smile from him. For a moment he allowed himself to take her in.

Gaia, he missed her. He tried not to see her unless strictly necessary, because it only made him second-guess why he had let her go all over again.

“How about you?” she asked. “You’re all roughed up.”

He pulled her sleeve back down. “It’s been a bad few weeks, and it’s not about to let up any time soon. I’ve given up on sleep until next year.”

“Oh… Sorry to be a contributing factor.”

He smirked, poked her in the side to make her double up. “You’re not sorry at all.” 

She giggled and straightened, feeling automatically for the new chip in her arm. For a moment they both stood there, Tseng wondering at how easy this exchange had been. She was getting more and more confident and easy-going. It was good to see.

At least one good thing was coming out of this whole feral stage she was going through. Perhaps he should encourage that confidence. Better to see her like this than crying over boys in the Sector 6 junkyard.

“Exceptionally, because it’s been a while… I’ll let you get back to it,” he said, and handed her a stack of VIP train passes. “For you and your friends to come back down safely. I’ll let Elmyra know where you are. I’m trusting you to salvage your night, take some responsibility. That all right with you?“

She looked at the tickets like he was handing her Golden Saucer passes. Then she grinned and hugged him without warning.

“You’re the best,” she said, voice mushed against his leather jacket. He patted her shoulder, suddenly drenched in the flowery scent of her shampoo.

“You call me if anything comes up,” he told her. “I’ll be on duty tonight.”

“Thanks, Tseng.”

He let her break away from him, tickets and clothes bag in hand. He watched her get back to Luna, shout in her ear, show her the train tickets. Amused, he wondered what terms Aeris used to describe him. Both girls turned to wave at him, and then they were engulfed in the crowd of dancing drunks.

\- - -


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last "memories" chapter! After this it'll all be present-time.

**\- - -**

_Midgar_

_[ memories ]_

**\- - -**

There came a point in Wutai’s shifting politics where the Emperor declared a new cutting-up of regions. The war had finally come to a lull, rebellious Wutain factions bowing their heads after ceaseless sanctions and trying to pick up whatever business they could, turning to scorched fields, preparing the long effort of revitalizing the land.

As an honorary contributor to Wutai’s new economy, ShinRa received an elaborately crafted tapestry with all the new regions, towns and cities and beautiful artwork depicting the natural landscape.

It was sent to the Turks’ department for digital copying and classifying in company archives. Its final destination would be a wall in President Shinra’s office.

Tseng kept the tapestry rolled up in its velvet sheath. He waited until dark, until most of his Turks had gone save for his closest few, the ones with whom he could drink and knock his brain out long enough to unroll the map, copy it, and stow it away again.

Reno was sitting on his desk, shirt half open, shouting across the office at Rude about whatever the latest romantic drama was. Rude was trying to remain dignified but he had brought out the strongest stuff, so even he was blinking owlishly behind his glasses. Cissnei was draped over him, jabbing a finger at Reno, bravely defending Rude’s honour.

Tseng smirked as he lifted his glass for Rude to top him up. Blue label single malt whiskey. He’d had about eight glasses already. Perhaps with a ninth one his eyes would blur enough for him to be able to stand the sight of whatever the Emperor had made of Wutai. Neo-Wutai.

He stood up, made his way to one of the empty desks by the scanner machines. The others saw he was carrying the velvet sheath. They drifted after him, still bantering among themselves.

“You finally going to open that thing?” Reno asked.

“Yeah, you’ve been keeping us all in suspense,” said Cissnei.

Tseng slid off the sheath. “Let’s have a look then, shall we.”

He unrolled the scroll.

Thick cream silk covered the table. Curling waves and mountain ranges rose to greet them, the embroidery so fine and detailed that every centimetre screamed the map’s price. The towns were each embroidered with their names over them in both Wutain ideograms and common letters.

They bent over the new borders, pointing and exclaiming one after the other, _Oh! That’s where we dropped by parachute for that rescue… Oh! Isn’t that where we have our missile base? Funny that they didn’t embroider that… Oh, I remember that town, best hot springs I’ve been to in my life…_

Tseng was quiet. His eyes were on an empty patch of the tapestry. Eventually Rude’s uncanny ability to verbalise what he was thinking came to light once again.

“Hey, wait. That town that we evacuated. Wasn’t it supposed to be there?” His finger pointed to another empty space. Reno frowned over it.

“Oh yeah! What was the name of that town again?”

“It was evacuated for a reason,” Tseng said. “It no longer exists.”

Reno raised his eyebrows and hummed thoughtfully. “Now that you mention it, it’s no surprise. I remember the Emperor had to ask Shinra Senior to ban the use of certain materia because Sephiroth was way too destructive during the repression efforts. Must’ve been one of the towns he wiped off the map.”

“Hey Tseng,” Cissnei said. “Where’s your hometown?”

Perhaps it was the whiskey, but Tseng found it strangely humorous to point at his own empty space and say, “There.”

Cissnei stared. “What… you mean…”

Reno and Rude both stared at him.

“Did we ever go there?” Rude asked.

“No.”

“Was ShinRa involved?”

“I think so. There was quite a lot of rebellious activity in that area. The Emperor would’ve encouraged Shinra to back him up in those places.”

They looked at him with a mixture of horror and empathy on their faces. Tseng chucked back the rest of his whiskey.

So his hometown was gone.

Good. A clean slate.

When someone asked where he came from, he could just say nowhere, and it would be true.

Finally. To come from nowhere. To be no one. That was a luxury he’d never realised he craved so much before now. He was already a shadow, moving in the darkness of stealth and moral ambiguity. Now he didn’t even have a past to speak of.

“What was your hometown called?” Cissnei asked quietly.

“Doesn’t matter now,” Tseng said as he reached for the scanning equipment. “Turn on the machines, would you?”

\- - -

A full orchestra of trumpets and drums was banging in his head the next morning. He sat up, sighed as he massaged his temples, hardly able to open his eyes as the hangover pummelled his brain.

There was a man in his bed.

The youth was flopped on his belly, large hands upturned on the sheets. A tousled head of ginger curls dented the pillow. Tseng squinted at him in the dim light that filtered in through the blinds.

He should’ve known. Going out with Rude and Reno meant wandering into the sleazier districts of the plate, and… well. This wasn’t the first time he’d woken with a surprise guest.

Where in the hell had he picked this one up?

He pushed himself out of bed, leaving the guy there. He didn’t keep any work files in his new flat, so there was no risk of compromising anything. He just couldn’t deal with both the orchestra and whoever _that_ was.

While the coffee machine chugged on, he dumped a few generous slices of ginger in a mug, poured hot water and squeezed in some lemon. He shuffled around his kitchen in his silk pyjama bottoms, jaw-length hair scattered over his face, eyes squinted almost shut, trying to remember how last night had gone.

From the evidence of the clothes strewn across his living room floor and the fact that his thighs and abs ached like he’d run a marathon, he decided that it didn’t matter. It was obvious how it had ended.

By the time the guy emerged, Tseng’s hangover was slightly less blaring. He was quite pretty, clean-shaven and well-built. From his extremely tight leather trousers and the artfully see-through blouse he was wearing wide open over his abs, Tseng vaguely remembered which street they’d met in.

He scraped his hair out of his face for the umpteenth time. He still couldn’t get used to this length.

“Did I pay you?” he asked.

The male stripper grinned. “Good morning to you too. And that’s not a very good question, is it? I could just say no and get double.”

Tseng shrugged. “I don’t care either way. How much was it?”

“You know, you’re far more charming when you’re wasted,” the stripper protested. Instead of answering, he went to the coffee machine. “Oh, you made me coffee! I take it back.”

“Actually I didn’t,” Tseng said. “I take a lot of coffee in the morning.”

The guy poured himself a mug anyway and leaned insolently against the kitchen counter.

“Do you even remember my name?” he asked.

“Uh…”

“It’s Zed,” said the guy with a smirk. “And it was a thousand Gil.”

“All right.” Tseng put down his mug, went to grab his coat off the floor, hooked it on a chair and rummaged for his wallet.

“Seriously?” Zed said as Tseng counted his money. “Don’t let me steal from you, man. There was no money involved. I came home with you because I wanted to.”

Tseng folded the notes, shrugged as he handed it over. “Take it as a tip then.”

“Wow. No messing around, then. Only business,” Zed said with a grin, plucking the money from Tseng’s hand.

“Did we use protection?”

“Yep. You can check the bathroom if you want.”

“All right. Good.” He downed the last of his ginger infusion and went to serve himself a cup of coffee. As Zed picked an apple out of Tseng’s fruit bowl and crunched into it, Tseng observed the inkwork that spiralled over the guy’s hipbone and up his waist. He tilted his head.

The ink glittered green.

“Is that materia dust?” he said, nodding at Zed’s tattoo. The ginger put a hand over the ink and grinned again.

“You really don’t remember anything, do you?” he said. “You asked that last night, too. Yeah, it’s materia dust.”

“I didn’t know there was a tattoo artist in Midgar who did that.”

“Yeah. She’s really good. I’m never sure whether to recommend her though. I know this kind of thing isn’t exactly legal.”

Tseng sipped his coffee. Even in Wutai, traditional tattoos of that sort had been banned a while ago. Officially, the process of adding materia dust to tattoo ink was considered sacrilegious and irreverent. It was also said to be a health hazard; dust was meant to be far more unstable than a properly polished ball of materia. In reality it was to limit people’s ability to go around with magic right there in their skin. You couldn’t disarm them; you couldn’t steal their materia from them.

It was easy to see why sex workers would go in for this type of magic. Skin-deep. No equipment necessary. Something your assailant couldn’t turn against you.

“Which elemental is it?” Tseng asked.

“Lightning.”

Tseng hummed thoughtfully. An idea was slowly blooming in his mind.

“So what would I have to do to get you to cough the artist’s name?” he asked. Zed made the kind of sultry face that Tseng supposed he had enjoyed last night. “Seriously,” he added. “I’m interested.”

“You’d have to supply your own materia dust for the first appointment,” Zed said. “After that, she sells you her own stock.”

“So she forces you to incriminate yourself first,” Tseng said with a smirk. Zed shrugged.

“It’s so you start off on the right foot.”

Tseng went to one of the cupboards of his kitchen, opened it. Sorted through the large stacked pots until he found a small aluminium-wrapped object. He brought it out and placed it on the kitchen isle. Under the stripper’s eyes, he unwrapped it until he had uncovered a blood-spattered satchel. The blood had dried to a deep brown. Stamped on the cloth was a Wutain ideogram.

It felt bizarre to bring it out in front of a stranger like this. A morbid souvenir from Tseng’s first kill. But the guy didn’t need to know where he’d gotten this.

Tseng pulled at the strings, opened it for Zed to look inside. Red dust glittered within. The guy’s eyes went wide.

“Is that a summon?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck. That must’ve cost you a fortune. Which one is it?”

“I don’t know,” Tseng lied. He was already showing him too much. “So? Will you give me her address?”

His expression far more serious now, Zed nodded. “You got a map? I’ll show you. I’d rather not write it down.”

-

The place was hidden away on the second storey of an Upworld nightclub. Tseng said the password to the burly bouncer at the back of the club, went through the backdoor and up a worryingly unstable iron staircase. At the top was another bouncer, another password. He was let through a beaded curtain and into the lair of the tattoo artist.

Sato. No last name. She was hunched over a tilted table, working on a design as he came in. On the left-hand wall were pages and pages of designs, frames on the floor leaning together in stacks. On the right were long shelving units full of tattooing paraphernalia, inks, guns, various pots and vials of substances. At the back of the room was a plush bench, lit by an overarching mobile lamp.

She turned to face him as he came in. Half her head was shaved; the other sported a traditional Wutain hairstyle, short fringe, medium segment at the front, long hair tied in a ponytail at the back. Under the black lipstick and heavy eyeshadow, there was a classic beauty about her, though aged. 

“You my two o’clock?” she asked. Her voice was heavily accented and hoarse from smoking.

“Yes.”

Tseng offered her the pouch. She took it, made no mention of the blood that stained it, though she cocked her eyebrow when she saw the ideogram. Heading over to the lamp, she set it down on a little table and opened it so the light flooded in.

She glanced up at Tseng. “Phoenix?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Where did you get this?”

“I was under the impression that we could keep such things private,” Tseng said. 

“Of course,” Sato said, and then switched to Wutain. “But it’s different for countrymen.”

Tseng stared her down. She didn’t budge.

“Where did you get this?” she asked again, her voice lower and hoarser still in her mother tongue.

“Why?”

“Only certain families could have access to Phoenix dust,” she told him. “Families close to the Emperor.”

Tseng shrugged. “I got it off a dead man. Seeing that he worked with the new revolutionaries, or whatever they call themselves nowadays – I doubt he held much love for the Emperor.”

“And do you?”

Tseng smirked. “No.”

“Good, then.”

She gestured for him to follow her. Tseng fell into step beside her, letting her lead him to the wall of designs. There were mainly pieces that represented whatever materia the person was infusing into their skin – elemental artwork, things evoking Commands and battle styles. Only two summons populated the wall, Ifrit and Shiva. Apparently Phoenix was rare enough that she had to go through some of her dusty frames, flitting through the stacks.

At last she dragged out two designs. He gazed at them both. A fiery bird with its wings tucked in perched gracefully on a branch in the first. In the second, the bird’s wings were wide open, its tail flicking down elegantly.

Tseng gestured at the second. “That one.” 

“If you want to use the materia, it will have to be a big piece,” Sato said. “Front or back?”

“Back.”

“With this design, the tail will have to go down your thigh.”

“Suits me.”

“It will take several sessions,” Sato said. “Cost a lot of money, too. And it will be painful. Tattoo ink with materia dust is very painful to endure.”

“How many hours?”

“Maybe twenty, twenty-five. The amount of sessions will depend on your pain tolerance.”

Tseng smiled. “My pain tolerance is very high.”

-

She had not been lying when she said it was painful.

The first session was the outline. Tseng lay on his front on her bench, naked, trying to take in what little warmth he could from the light. He watched as Sato mixed the powder with her inks. She had strange-looking tattoo guns and bunched needles. Not that he had much experience in the domain, but he supposed that to use materia-dusted ink required specialized equipment.

When she drew the first line, she let him take it in. The sting of the needle was fine – but the burn, the _burn_ of the dust against his skin – it was like tiny creatures burrowing into him, sinking their teeth into him. He breathed through it, trying to acclimatize to it.

“Pain tolerance still very high?” Sato said with a grin.

He glared at her. “Keep going.”

She bent over him and worked.

Pain filled his mind at first. Time stretched and it was all he could think of. Horrible, burning, scorching lines stretching across his back, wriggling under his skin. He breathed and breathed, reduced to a creature of pure sensation as he lay there, trying to endure it.

After a while the endorphins in his blood rose enough to allow him some coherence. He stared ahead at the wall of ink drawings, thinking back on the kill that had earned him this prize.

He thought back on many things. The silk tapestry of new Wutai. The empty spaces. This woman who shared his griefs, and yet who still lived here in this industrial place. Like him, she lived in the stomach of the monster that was devouring their homeland. There was no choice. It was better to be swallowed in the belly of the beast – at least down here, there were no more teeth.

The old country was nothing now save a coded language, a way to size one another up, a nostalgic memory. The Wutai she had known before coming here was probably long gone. As was the Wutai he had known. The sense of belonging endured like a frayed rope that led into an unfathomable mist, and they still pulled at it, they pulled as though all it took to pull a dead island out of the Underworld was dedication and longing.

His family was gone in that mist. His town. His purpose.

He had to choose what he belonged to.

He closed his eyes, frowned as she progressed down his spine.

He already knew what he belonged to.

The reason for this tattoo had been hidden under impulsiveness and the haze of a hangover. Now it became clear. He was dedicating himself to his new purpose. Protector. Guardian. If he served, he no longer needed to worry about his own dilemmas. They faded before the importance of serving those he was responsible for.

He pictured Ifalna, her snow-white face. Try as he might, he couldn’t recall her when her cheeks had been rosy and her eyes sparkling with life.

He pictured Aeris painstakingly trying to adapt to her new home. 

His debts to the dead were piling up. He would stay here on this plane, he would throw himself into the duties that lay before him until those debts were repaid. Whatever that meant. Whenever that would be.

Whenever the guilt would finally let go of him.

(He doubted it ever would.)

With every scorching line of the tattoo, he renewed the vow. It was ancient practice, this marking of the skin. Pain, blood, and ink. Intention carved into his very skin. He would guard Aeris. He would protect those who lay under his responsibility. He would fulfil his purpose until he was no longer needed.

Then… perhaps he would be allowed to close his eyes and lose himself entirely in the shadows. 

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Totally forgot to include the inspiration for the tattoos, this awesome piece of art by Narcisseart:  
> https://lilly-white.tumblr.com/post/628975888229416960/my-tseng-hcs-1-traditional


	12. Chapter 12

**ACT II**

_[ present ]  
_

**\- - -**

_Midgar_

**\- - -**

Luna’s place down in the slums looked quite good when it was cleaned up. It had been cleaned up once this year for Elmyra’s sake. Elmyra had demanded to visit Aeris’s girlfriend, get to know her, see where her daughter spent so much time. Luna had taken special care to spruce the place up, pick the pasta off the plastic plants, wipe years of grime and cigarette ash off the tables. Elmyra sat down with both girls and they had had a nice proper dinner together at Luna’s small table.

There was no longer anything proper about the state of Luna’s flat nowadays. Aeris woke one summer morning to the stench of cold tobacco and dried alcohol patches. The couches were angled in a strange Z across the living room – the plants had bits of spaghetti hanging off them again somehow. The small table could barely even be seen under the piles of beer bottles.

Aeris groaned, rubbing her head as she pushed up off the couch. Wasted kids lay all around her. It was impossible to tell if some were sleeping or still high on weed. She carefully plucked Luna’s leg off her waist and stood up, brushing down her pink dress.

From the deep blue lights outside, it was either far too late or far too early. Something felt off. At first Aeris thought she might be queasy because of the dregs of last night’s party stinking up the place.

No. It was something else.

She went to the biggest plastic plant, a red tradescantia with too-thick leaves. Luna did insist on neglecting the lilies that Aeris gave her, letting them die one after the other and hoping Aeris wouldn’t notice by bringing out these plastic things. Aeris touched the edges of stiff leaves distractedly as she tried to chase the feeling to its source.

A distant wave was threatening to come crashing over her. Whispers began to rise, like the susurrus of water dragging across pebbles.

Staring blankly at the plant, Aeris stopped breathing, tried to concentrate. Put up what mental barriers she could. It reminded her of when she had sensed Elmyra’s husband dying – he had trickled across her consciousness, a hand brushing her wrist, words flitting past her as precariously as butterflies.

This time it didn’t feel like one person.

It felt like dozens.

It felt like hundreds.

The wave was coming closer, the whispers louder. Aeris grabbed her jacket, wrenched open the door. Stepped out in the slightly less stuffy air of Sector 4. She needed – she needed air. More air.

She couldn’t outrun the wave – it was insubstantial, it was all around her, the Lifestream swelling under the barren earth that supported this city. She managed to stagger to her church, place her palms on the old wooden doors.

Then the wave crashed onto her.

It tore around her, through her, dragging her down into the undertow. She struggled to breathe, eyes wide and sightless as the anguish of a thousand souls whirled all around her.

“Miss Gainsborough? Is that you?”

She jumped around, finding the old woman she knew from the Wallmarket confectioner’s shop.

“Are you all right?” the old woman asked, frowning in concern.

“Yes, fine,” she gasped. “Don’t – don’t worry about me. Had a bit to drink.”

“You girls,” the old woman said, shuffling closer. She reached in her pocket and held out a few lemon drops for her. “Here, take them. You want me to take you home?”

“I’ll be all right,” Aeris promised her. “Thank you though.”

Watch her shuffle away, Aeris popped a lemon drop in her mouth, concentrated on the zing of it to try and ground herself. She pocketed the rest and fished for her flip phone. She was trembling so much she barely managed to click through to Tseng’s number.

It took three tries to get him.

“Tseng,” she gasped. “Tseng, what’s happened? Something’s happened.”

There was a silence on the other end of the line. Then Tseng let out a mirthless laugh.

“Nothing for you to worry about.”

“Tseng - ”

“I don’t know what the story is yet. I’ll tell you as soon as I’m at liberty to.”

That meant whatever was going on was happening _now_. The cover story would arrive in the next few days, ShinRa clearing up their messes as they always did.

But, this… she had never felt so horribly submerged in pain. At least, not since she was small when the Wutai war still raged.

“Tseng, please,” she insisted, her voice cracking up. “Are you all right? What’s going on? Please – is everything going to be OK?”

She was sniffing and trying her best not to cry by the end of it. Tseng immediately became more responsive when he heard how upset she was. He reassured her that this would not reach the city, that they had everything in hand. That none of this would affect her.

But it would – it already had.

-

At Aeris’s request, Cissnei had gotten her odd jobs at the Sector 5 immigration centre, where unregistered people ended up if they tried to get into Midgar via the highways or the slum’s outer gates. It was a hubbub of information, the constant flux of people creating a perfect marker of the impact that ShinRa was currently having on this or that part of the world.

Aeris headed there for volunteer work right after she felt the disaster happen. The staff knew her – they let her help the nurses in the medical ward, sit at people’s bedsides, keep children while their mothers took language classes and organised their accommodations.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened for the next few days. At least, nothing that gave her any clues as to the tragedy that had taken place.

Then one night, an old man drenched in blood came into the reception hall. Nobody knew how he had gotten there – usually people arrived flanked by Peacekeepers, but this man was alone, draped in a red cape, carrying a young unconscious woman in his arms.

“Help us,” he croaked, his words heavily accented. “Help us.”

Aeris would always remember that scene. Everyone was too shocked to move. Then one of the receptionists surged forwards, and the rest followed. Calls were made to the medical ward, a stretcher hastily rolled out for the young woman. Aeris followed the movement, striding to the stretcher while the others took care of the bewildered old man.

She helped roll her along while the nurses put together saline kit and oxygen supply. Before the mask went on the girl’s face, Aeris saw that she couldn’t be much older than herself. A huge gash scarred her abdomen, half-cured and stapled together. She was barely breathing.

Aeris waited in the corridor while doctors rushed to attend to her. She gnawed at her nails, staring sightlessly at the wall. The old man had been placed in another emergency room. No one knew if either of them would make it through the night.

Then at last, at last… hours later, the verdict came. Doctor Salisbury exited the girl’s room, finding Aeris waiting there expectantly.

“Anyone you know, love?” the doctor asked.

“Yes,” Aeris lied. “Is she going to be all right?”

The woman squeezed Aeris’s shoulder. “Yes. If you want to stay with her just so she has a friendly face when she wakes, you’re welcome to. We’ll be in and out to check on her.”

“I’ll do that.”

-

It was no easy feat for Aeris to stick around in a white-washed place that smelled of antiseptics. But she had to know what was going on – and she had to do something for that poor girl.

She sat reading by the girl’s bedside until morning. Sleep was catching up on her, and she was drowsing off when there came several irregular beeps from the machines around them.

Aeris jumped up. The girl was shaking her head slowly from side to side. Soft groans drifted from her lips, making Aeris lean closer, heart pounding.

“Papa,” the girl muttered. She sounded close to tears. “Papa.”

“Hey, hi,” Aeris attempted. “Can you hear me?”

The girl turned her head, opened her eyes. They were a dazzling burgundy shade. She frowned at Aeris, said something in a language Aeris didn’t know.

“It’s all right. I’m Aeris,” she said gently. “What’s your name?”

“… Tifa.”

“Tifa, was that man your father?” Aeris asked her. “I can go get word from the nurses to see how he’s doing.”

“What?” the girl asked, switching to the common tongue. Her frown deepened, and she tried to push herself up. “What man? Where am I?”

Aeris placed a hand on the girl’s arm, trying to soothe her. “Don’t get up. You were badly hurt, but you’re OK now. An old man in a red cape brought you here. You’re in Midgar.”

Tifa’s eyes flicked from side to side, as though trying to remember how she’d gotten there. But the effort was too much – she pressed a hand to her head, frowning.

“You don’t have to remember everything just now,” Aeris told her. “I’ll get the nurses, they’ll bring you some food and water.”

But before Aeris could hit the button, Tifa grabbed her arm, spearing her there with a look.

“Is Nibelheim still standing?” she asked urgently. “Did anyone else survive?”

\- - -


	13. Chapter 13

\- - -

_Midgar_

_\- - -_

Tseng prepared himself some coffee. His office had never been so quiet. Nobody was around – everyone had been assigned their tasks in the prevention of information leakage. Reno and Rude had the unenviable task of tracking down the cartload of survivors that that tiresome martial artist had sent off. There were trails leading to Gongaga and Costa del Sol – they all had to be found and processed. 

Alongside Reeve Tuesti and Lazard, Tseng was handling the teams who would be rebuilding Nibelheim from scratch. It was a monumental cover-up effort. Tuesti had the plans drawn up, contacted the specialists who would see it done. Lazard sent out teams to make sure they’d be well-protected, and to enforce a perimeter so no stragglers might see it happen.

Tseng… Tseng was rallying those people who would be interested in a new life. New houses, new jobs, new situations. All they had to do was sign a non-disclosure agreement as to why Nibelheim had become a ghost town that needed filling up. Once the core team of actors were set up, the advertisement process to populate the town with real people could begin.

Sipping his coffee, Tseng stared down at the file he’d opened. Sephiroth gazed out at him sullenly from the photo.

Shinra Senior had seen what Sephiroth could do to entire Wutain towns. Of course this was bound to happen if they mishandled him. Everyone seemed so shocked that Sephiroth had been capable of this, but…

Tseng ground his teeth. Put down his coffee before it dripped on his desk.

The flames that had engulfed his riverside village in Wutai must have been very much the same. All-consuming, terrorizing. Shinra Senior was only worried about the destructiveness of his weapons now that they were aimed at his own company.

Tseng picked up his coffee again, clicked his way through several phone-calls that were on his list. Halfway through, an incoming call interrupted his streak.

He looked at the screen.

Aeris.

“Hold on, I need to take this,” he said to his contact, and put her on.

“What happened in Nibelheim?” Aeris blurted out in a brazen challenge.

The words sent an icy thrill down his spine. “What have you heard?”

“There’s a girl down here. She claims Sephiroth went insane and burned it all down.”

That the intel leak was so close to home made Tseng stride out immediately, grabbing his coat on the way. “Where are you?”

“I’m – she’s – what are you going to do?” Aeris stammered. Clearly she knew she’d made a mistake by telling him at all. 

“I’m not going to do anything. I’m just coming down to see you. Can you stay with her?”

“Yeah. Um. We’re in the Sector 5 immigration centre.”

“I’m on my way.”

-

Tseng met her in the corridor. By then nurses had come in and out to check on Tifa’s state. She’d eaten and was resting, the door to her room closed.

Aeris got up from her chair to greet him, her face pale and worried. He knew his presence in this place could only incite wariness from all those who ended up here, whether convalescent or visiting. Aeris was no exception. She was responding to his suit rather than his true self as she stood before him.

“What did she tell you?” he demanded. “Give me the full story.”

“Only if you can promise me that she’ll be safe,” Aeris bit back.

Tseng looked at her, this small and furious girl, her moss-green eyes staring right into his soul. He knew Rude and Reno hadn’t spared all the survivors they came across. It was either obtain cooperation or terminate the target.

Whether that girl in the hospital room survived depended entirely on her.

“You can’t promise me, can you?” Aeris said. “I should’ve seen that coming. I was so _stupid_ to call you - ”

“Aeris. If you hadn’t called me, if anyone else had found out about her, she would probably be dead. I’m going to do my best to protect her. But I need you to help me.”

She glared at him, though he could see how she hesitated. He hated putting her in this position, forcing her hand, using manipulative tactics on her.

At last, she relented what she knew: “Sephiroth was sent to Nibelheim to check the Mako Reactor there. Then he went insane overnight and burned it all down. Tifa lost her whole family, her neighbours, everyone. She wants to know if there are other survivors.”

So. That was the story. Probably the same one that every other survivor was spouting to his officers, trying to get them to admit the truth of ShinRa’s horrendous mismanagement of their most dangerous asset.

Tseng nodded. “Thank you. That’s more than enough. If you want, you can come in with me so she feels more comfortable?”

Easily as anything, she agreed and led the way to the door. Whether Aeris realised she was now actively working with him as his agent of sorts, it was impossible to tell. He didn’t think she realised it; she was too preoccupied by the immediacy of the situation.

She was tangled up in this now. He had to manage her as well as this Tifa girl. Feeling all the more wretched, he gestured for her to enter before him. She pushed the door open, held it open for him to come inside.

The Nibelheim girl was wrapped up in bandages, making a stiff white figure in the bed. She roused from her rest, her eyes going wide as she took in Tseng’s imposing frame and marine blue threads. Aeris sat beside her, reaching to take her hand, both girls already bonded by the emotional extremes of the night.

“Tifa Lockhart,” the Director began. “I’m Tseng. I’m here to help you.”

Tifa went on looking at him, her gaze growing darker as the seconds trickled by. “You’re ShinRa, aren’t you?”

Tseng nodded.

“Then I have nothing to say to you.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” Tseng said smoothly. “I have a couple of facts to give you. This is the first fact.” He paused, gauging her emotional state. She was angry, in shock, aggrieved. This would not all go smoothly. “There was no fire in Nibelheim,” he stated. “There was no voluntary homicide. Simply a malfunction in the reactor which caused an accident, like there was at Gongaga. Your family were unfortunately there when it happened, and - ”

“No! That’s not – that’s not how it happened!” Tifa spoke over him, too weak to shout though he could tell she wanted to. Aeris stood and shouted for her.

“Tifa’s covered in burn marks, you can’t say there wasn’t a fire – ”

“A result of the accident, if anyone asks,” Tseng said pointedly. “This is the second fact. Ladies – please.” He waited until they were done shouting at him before continuing. “This is the second fact. Sephiroth is dead.”

That effectively reduced them both to silence. Tifa blinked at him, confused. Aeris… he knew he shouldn’t have broken it to her like that. She was frowning like she’d just heard something in another language altogether. She didn’t find anything to say.

“The news will come out next week, that he is MIA and presumed dead.”

“Is it true?” Tifa asked.

“Yes.”

“As true as your other _fact_?” she snarled.

“I have a third one for you,” he replied. “You will stay here as long as you need to recover. Once you’re well enough to leave, there will be a job waiting for you and appropriate accommodation. They will be yours for as long as you remember your facts correctly.” 

Tifa pushed herself up into a sitting position, breathing heavily she did so. Aeris reached for her, perhaps to get her to stop moving around, but Tifa had a death wish in her eye as she glared at Tseng.

“You want me to lie for you?”

“I want you to help me help you,” Tseng clarified. “As long as you work with me, you can live comfortably.”

“And what’s the alternative?”

“You don’t need to worry about that, so long as you work with me.”

Her breathing was getting more and more laboured. He stared into those dark red eyes, staying carefully impassive even as tears rolled down the girl’s cheeks.

“My parents,” she muttered. “My family. My town. You want me to _lie about it_?”

“Less of a lie, more of an omission.”

That was the wrong thing to say. Then again, all of this had been wrong from the start.

 _Easier to put a bullet in them when there’s too much pain,_ Veld used to say.

Tifa wrenched herself out of her bed. The sight of her took his breath away. It was as pitiful as it was thrilling, this bandaged-up girl ripping the IVs from her arms and _lunging_ at him, a rigid golem of plaster and wires. Aeris cried out for her to stop – but Tifa didn’t get very far in her condition. With a growl of pain and rage, she crumpled to the floor at Tseng’s feet.

She was howling insults, first in her mother tongue, then just one word that she hurled at him, which was perhaps the most poignant insult of all:

_ShinRa!_

_SHINRA!_

His hands were cold as he took her by the shoulders and lifted her, fitted her back in her bed and slammed the emergency button. Aeris had her hands clapped around her mouth. He wrapped a solid arm around her shoulders, plucked her away from Tifa’s bedside.

“We’ll talk again,” he promised Tifa, and then left her to her weeping, bundling Aeris with him.

Out in the corridor, Aeris slapped at his chest until he let go over her. She pushed him away as hard as she could, panting with the effort. He waited for her to react to what had just happened, trying not to let his fear show.

Gaia, the expression on her face. Utter betrayal.

This was where he’d lose her.

“This is what you do?” she said, her voice trembling. “You threaten people into lying for you? You cover up entire massacres - ”

“You don’t know the full story, Aeris.”

Her eyebrows skyrocketed. “Oh, and now you’re going to lie to me, too?”

“No. You only know what she told you, which is a piece of the story. Obviously you don’t have all the facts.” He tried to breathe, calm his racing heartbeat before he told her too much. It was already a gamble to even tell her this much. “I don’t want any more people to die over this. I’m doing what I can to protect her – that’s the truth.”

Her eyes raked down his body and back up to his face, like she was gauging how rank a bottle of milk had gotten.

“You’re disgusting,” she breathed.

It came as far bigger a blow than he’d expected. His lips parted as those words ripped through his heart.

“If I were the old director, she would be dead,” he insisted. “This is the best I can do for her. We never wanted this disaster to happen. We’re trying to clean it up as best we can.”

“By skirting around the fact that you’re _responsible_ for it?” Aeris said, her voice rising. “Hundreds of people died. I felt them! You don’t know what it’s like, Tseng – they all screamed, they all died one after the other – there were so many. There were so many.”

Her voice broke on those last words. Tseng couldn’t stand this distance any longer. He stepped forwards, wrapped his arms around her. She kept hers folded between their chests, breathing in hiccups, stiff as a plank in his arms.

“If I don’t protect her, if I just leave this alone, then the Board will put someone else on her,” he murmured in her hair. “President Shinra doesn’t like information leaks. They’re ruthless – you know that just as much as I do. I want the survivors to start over – have as good a life as we can offer them. That’s all I want.”

She was quiet, still hiccupping, trying to repress her sobs.

“I need your help with her,” he went on. “If she’s overhead talking about the fire, then ShinRa won’t be kind to her.” He pulled away, held her at arm’s length, tried to catch her eye though she wouldn’t let him. “Can you help me, Aeris?”

She blinked warily up at him. “How?”

\- - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand this is it for now folks. Thanks a bunch for reading, sorry we didn't quite make it to the smut before I have to bring down the hiatus lol. (Author Brezifus has got you covered there with their current smutfic collection if you have a Mighty Need lol. :D)  
> The next part of the fic essentially brings in Tifa & Barret & neo-Avalanche and the actual /romance/ part of the Tserith, which was technically the whole damn point I wanted to write this lol, but lo and behold the fic blew out of proportion while I outlined it and here we are. :'D I don't know when I'll come back to it as I can't take a single writing project "lightly", I have to go all in or not at all, so I mentally cannot handle having 2 projects going on at once lol. Anyway, hope y'all take care of yourselves and I'll see you at some point!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back!!! With a couple of chapters I wrote in a fit of inspiration today lmao. Weirdly it felt like such a gush of words that I am worried I'm only deluding myself that it's coherent/readable lmao. Hopefully it's OK. Also, I kind of fudged the canon ages of characters so, don't look too closely there lol. (I think Seph was meant to be 27 when he snapped, but I made him a bit younger here). Enjoy!

\- - -

_Midgar_

_\- - -_

“ _Papa!”_ Tifa shouted against her cushions. “ _Papa, no!”_

Her face was shining with sweat. Aeris was by her side in seconds, sitting on the edge of her bed, fumbling in the sheets for Tifa’s hand. The girl reared up as she always did, eyes wild, rasping breaths and coughing. She had bad lungs – it had been weeks since Nibelheim but they still hadn’t recovered. The doctors said it would take a lot of fluids and a lot of rest for them to get back to their full capacity.

Aeris rubbed her back as Tifa coughed and hacked. Outside, stray dogs howled at the disturbance, setting off a whole commotion of other dogs and insomniacs chucking out curses and empty beer bottles to scatter the strays.

“You’re all right,” Aeris muttered, heart pounding. “You’re OK Tifa, I’m here, I’m here. Take this.”

She had water ready, and the inhaler. Tifa took both. The inhaler clicked and hissed as she sucked in the medication. Aeris let the girl cling to her as she calmed herself. The bedroom they were in was still very much unfurnished, impersonal. Borrowed space. Aeris had brought in flowers and some decorations they no longer used at Elmyra’s, but the only impression it gave was strange girliness in a room inhabited by a Nibel she-wolf who absolutely did not suit the flower bouquets and soft pastel artwork on the walls.

Still. The fact that Tifa had a bedroom at all in Sector 7 spoke volumes for how much ShinRa wanted to keep this hushed up. How much _Tseng_ wanted to keep this hushed up. Aeris kept having to make the correction in her head. 

A favour, he called it. A bribe was what it was. And if Tifa didn’t take it, Tifa was dead.

There was a living room with a fully equipped kitchen, an entrance, a bathroom. It had a corrugated steel roofing which was more solid than most places. Being just above the local pub, it had running water and heating installed, too. It was state of the art by Sector 7 standards. With a little sprucing up, it could even be as cozy as Elmyra’s place.

But Tifa hadn’t had much energy for sprucing.

 _The pub owners used to live here,_ Tseng had told them when he’d given them the keys. _They gave up the license to the township and moved to the Upperworld. The license is yours now. The old manager still works here, he’ll show you the ropes._

Just like that, Tifa not only had a flat of her own but a business of her own, too. Not many slummers were so well propped up barely a few weeks into their arrival in Midgar. In fact Aeris was certain that all the more well-off slummers had only gotten so comfortable thanks to ShinRa’s help, or the petty crimelords down here.

After all, she and Elmyra were kept by the same master as Tifa.

Elmyra let her stay with Tifa, understanding the situation the girl was in. Aeris knew her mother was glad to see less of the punks she had spent the last year with; as much as Elmyra had been charmed by Luna at first, the girl’s lifestyle had inevitably bled out into the light and earned Elmyra’s quiet reproach. Now that Elmyra had met Tifa and been quite impressed by her, she’d accepted to let Aeris help out someone whose issues weren’t excessive weed consumption and chronic lack of a job, which Elmyra did not have much patience for. 

When Aeris came home, she would glance at the kitchen drawer where Elmyra kept her safe. ShinRa’s monthly stipends were neatly stowed away in there.

Aeris felt only too keenly now, how that money bought their silence too. The silence of Ifalna’s murder. The silence of her own identity. It bought her the pretence of a normal life, just like Tifa’s apartment keys and bar license bought her the pretence of a busy, thriving professional life. 

Every week, a dark silhouette came to the bar. He always came when the manager was gone, when Tifa was asleep. Always the same night of the week. Aeris would stay up, waiting, keeping the radio on so she could mask the noise and also pretend to be busy. When she heard the steps up the front porch, she’d go to him, give him a status report, and take what he had to give for Tifa. Most of the time it was pain meds and a wad of cash.

Tseng was different with her since the hospital. Colder, somehow. Like he knew it was useless to prop up any kind of friendly façade, now that she had seen what he truly was.

Good. As far as she was concerned, she was happy to continue treating him as just another middle man between her and ShinRa. 

After all, that’s what he had become.

\- - -

Daily work responsibilities gave Tifa something to hold onto. She gradually got more stable as she invested herself in the work. It had been a difficult adjustment period, but Tifa was not the type to sit and stare into space. She was too angry for that. If she didn’t exhaust herself behind the counter, she would go for long runs in the junkyards, workout in her dingy bedroom, or sometimes – those first weeks, especially – throw glasses against the walls, pick fights with drunks or join Aeris in the junkyards to destroy things, much to the despair of the salvagers. (They did not let Elmyra know about this.)

People quickly came to know about the foreigner who owned the Loveless bar. There was speculation about how she had gotten to that position, what deals her parents had potentially struck with which petty slum crimelord. Out of instinct, people decided to respect her because they flared _dangerous sponsor_ all over her. And also because it was hard to tell that Tifa Lockhart was only sixteen. She was built like an ox, never wore make-up, always looked pissed off. Aeris was glad that by her presence alone, Tifa could command silence and respect in her bar. Even Bruce the stingy old manager had taken a liking to her – he could’ve decided to take advantage of the girl’s ignorance of the business, but he didn’t. Aeris suspected he had his own complicated history, and that he appreciated Tifa’s quiet diligence as she learned how to adjust to the business from him. 

She was tough as nails, that girl. Aeris had never admired another girl her age as much as she admired Tifa. It made her magnetic, that endless energy she had, the rage she managed to tuck into her daily tasks, like making neat origami out of sprawling windswept flags of torn paper. Aeris mentioned more than once, how much she would love to learn how to do that, how to be strong like that, and Tifa promised her she’d help.

\- - -

“I can’t get any lower,” Aeris wheezed.

“Yes, you can!” Tifa insisted. They were in the backroom of the bar – Tifa was meant to be stowing away the day’s earnings, but instead their conversation had morphed into an impromptu lesson on how to do push-ups.

Aeris groaned as she tried to get her chest closer to the floorboards. “I can’t!” she squeaked. “ _Gnnn - ”_

Tifa put a boot on her back. “Come on! Those arms aren’t shaking at all – you have the strength to do it, Aer. Just clench your core! _Gird your loins!_ ”

Aeris burst out laughing. With how she was shaking, she collapsed onto the floor. “Gird your loins?” she cried out, and then for the first time ever, she heard Tifa laughing.

“Something my old teacher used to say,” she said. “In the Nibel tongue it’s - ”She spouted a string of incomprehensible Nibel words, which made Aeris look up at her. It sounded like the strict command of an army officer.

“Well! Your teacher sounds lovely!” Aeris railed, which made Tifa smirk again.

“Ah, he was quite lovely, yeah. He made me do laps in the mountains in the winter,” she said. “Taught me how to camp out in sub-zero temperatures, how to recognise monster tracks, practice jumping over crevasses…”

Aeris laughed again. “Just a normal kind of martial arts teacher then,” she said. Despite the harsh Nibel words, Tifa’s eyes still sparkled from her laughter. It was a small victory but such a significant one.

“Come on, let’s end on a good note,” Tifa said, nudging her again. “Give me ten. I know you can do it.”

Zangan was the only regular correspondent Tifa had. He was the man who’d brought her in to the immigration centre. Apparently he had too much trouble with ShinRa, so he couldn’t stay once he’d gotten better. Aeris saw his letters – Tifa pinned them up on her walls in the bedroom, and Aeris was glad that she went to sleep surrounded by the kind words of a friend. Like Aeris, Tifa did not have many people to whom she could properly relate. In fact she had nobody except for this man. Next to her, Aeris felt rich indeed with Tseng and Rude and Reno, three men who truly knew her, though she wasn’t sure she could call them friends. Tifa had met other Nibel survivors, Aeris knew she had – but as they had all received the same warning, they could never nurture relationships or talk about their past. They only recognised one another’s accent, shared meaningful looks, and went on their way.

Once they were back at the table, tucking coins into coin rolls and stacking them away, Aeris asked, “Why would a mayor’s daughter need to know martial arts, anyway?”

Tifa pulled tobacco apart over the counter, sprinkling it over the cigarette paper she’d prepared. It fell loosely – her knuckles were bloody from a recent fight so she trembled too much to make a neat job of it.

“Zangan inspired me,” Tifa said. “He lived up in the mountains for most of the year. He only very rarely took on students. He was a bit of a town legend, really.” She tilted her head, frowned as memories surfaced. “I guess I admired how free he was. His strength allowed him to go anywhere he wanted, challenge anyone he wanted.” She rolled up her cigarette, licked the paper. “Can’t always wait around for someone to save you.”

Aeris watched as Tifa tucked the cigarette between her lips and cracked her lighter.

“Tomorrow I’ll take you to the dojo,” she said, and Tifa raised an eyebrow. Aeris grinned. “Big Bro is going to love you.”

\- - -

Another Thursday night, another song on the radio while Aeris waited for the familiar silhouette to show up. Tifa had recently bought a sound system, but her collection of vinyls wasn’t quite what Aeris enjoyed.

Black shadow against the window. Wide shoulders, the long fall of his hair. It always squeezed Aeris’s gut, the sight of him.

She took in a deep breath, marched to the door. Opened it. Tseng was outlined in the tawdry pink neons that spelled out the Loveless’s name.

He was leaning heavily against the railing of the porch. His blazer was open – a dark red halo crept over the silky grey of his shirt at waist-level.

Heart beating, Aeris bit back the question, the concern he didn’t deserve. She ripped her eyes from the sight of his bloody, battered body, staring ahead instead at a group of punks a little way away who were talking while their scruffy dogs galloped around them.

Tseng said nothing and discreetly straightened his blazer to hide the blood. He didn’t seem in any pain as he reached into his inside pocket. He must’ve come straight from a mission and Cured himself along the way.

She didn’t need to worry about him. She _shouldn’t_ worry about him.

He was a ShinRa man through and through now. He only wore the face of her old friend, but there was nothing left of that boy’s softness and thoughtfulness inside that suit.

“How is she?” he asked as he always did. He handed her a recharge for Tifa’s inhaler, pain meds, and the sempiternal wad of cash. Weekly drops meant she wouldn’t endanger herself by having too much on her – that’s what he had told her.

“Angry,” Aeris said as she always did. “She’s breaking records at the dojo. They have her prepping for the semestrial championship. It’s given her focus and confidence. But she’s still angry.” She would always be angry. Hell, _Aeris_ was angry too, except it was a deep, cold kind of anger compared to Tifa’s raging fire. 

“Made any friends with those dojo guys?” Tseng asked in that cool, pseudo-conversational tone of his. Aeris knew he was taking mental notes.

“A few,” Aeris said diligently. “Why? Do you have them on file for something?” 

“Most of them aren’t of any interest to us. But the leader has some connections,” he said. “Just make sure she doesn’t get too friendly with him. You know what I mean.”

 _You know what I mean._ Aeris hated it when Tseng drew her in like that, made it sound like they were on the same side, both of them Tifa’s custodians when he was the one in charge. And besides, Tifa didn’t need any reminding. She could be loud and sociable, but she was only ever honest with Aeris about her past, her night terrors, her true identity.

“I know the drill,” Aeris said, her tone just as cold as Tseng’s. She still wasn’t looking at him. As much as she wanted to protect Tifa, she couldn’t help gritting her teeth through these meetings.

She was working for Tseng. It was difficult to avoid that fact now. He’d even bumped up Elmyra’s allowance, so she could no longer delude herself that she was an innocent guardian.

Indirectly… she was working for ShinRa now, too. Helping them keep their secrets.

“Anything else?” Tseng asked.

Aeris breathed in. Tifa had told her they didn’t need any help, and especially not from ShinRa, but… seeing as there were limited options for refreshment down here, and that the Loveless had gained quite the reputation with its infamous barmaid and its excellent supply of quality booze, they had begun to attract certain unsavoury characters.

“There’s… been some new faces at the bar,” Aeris admitted. “I think some are from that new gang that formed after the Daredevils disbanded. They’re always armed when they come in.”

Tseng observed her, wearing the calm interested expression she associated with this work persona of his, which was the only version of him she saw now.

“Mm. Black Mist?”

Aeris nodded. “I think that’s what they go by.”

”They’re certainly stirring up a fuss,” he said. “You have any idea who’s supplying them?”

“It’s not the gun-crafters They’ve got some properly concerning stuff. Better quality than anything I’ve seen down here. They even have high-level materia.”

“So I’ve heard. I’m keeping an eye out already. You know you can always call if something doesn’t feel right, or if you don’t feel safe.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

A pause. He never asked how she was. He still got the reports from Cissnei – nothing had changed on that front. Monthly meet-ups, monthly trips to the labs. He probably knew all the details about her life these past few months. It was strange to think so – she had no idea what he’d been up to.

“There’s been a new influx of people from Corel,” Tseng said. “Can you tell me if any of those drop by? It would be better if Tifa had minimal contact with them.”

Aeris frowned, trying to dredge up what she knew of Corel. It had been in the news years ago… an explosion from the reactor, rigged up by Avalanche. The whole town destroyed. The inhabitants had had to pick up and rebuild, but not all of them stayed put after they’d seen their livelihoods collapse into dust.

A freak reactor explosion… much like what the news had said about Nibelheim. Aeris wondered whether there was a link there. Whether Tseng had helped to disguise whatever the truth was about Corel.

This fresh affirmation of how ruthless he could be only heightened the disgust she felt towards him. The lurching betrayal. Hadn’t ShinRa destroyed his own hometown? Why was he keeping quiet about it all? Why was he helping them cover up more massacres?

She stared at him. There was nothing in his black eyes other than cool, casual interest, that aloof expression he always wore now when they talked.

“Sure,” she lied. “I’ll tell you.”

“Thank you, Aeris. Have a good evening.”

He turned to go. On his way down the porch steps, he clutched his waist, breathed in sharply. Aeris’s fingers tightened around the door handle, but she neither moved nor spoke. Tseng stepped down from the last step, holding himself up like nothing was wrong, did up the first button of his blazer. And he left without looking back.

She closed the door and locked it. 

\- - - 

Autumn was growing colder. Aeris dreaded the arrival of November.

With Tifa keeping her busy, she hadn’t truly processed in what Tseng had mentioned that day at the hospital. The loss of yet another person from her past.

As the dreaded date loomed closer, Aeris found herself obsessing over memories, trying to piece together whether she had seen early signs of Sephiroth’s madness. His death had been all over the news, and all anyone would talk about directly after the fact. Sephiroth, MIA presumed dead. ShinRa had made all sorts of public statements of his heroic actions in the war, and in the efforts against the chaotic defector, Genesis Rhapsodos. His death had been touted as something tragic, a heroic sacrifice while in the throes of duty.

Nothing whatsoever about madness. That was for the Turks to know, and the conspiracy nuts to muddle over.

Tifa never talked about Sephiroth’s direct actions. But she cried out in her sleep, yelling his name. She would mutter feverishly about fire, how Sephiroth had cloaked himself in the flames like Ifrit himself.

Aeris frowned as she held Tifa’s sweaty hands through the nightmares. She marvelled at how very different her own memories of Sephiroth were. Though she had grown up alongside him, she had never seen what he was capable of. She only knew he was ShinRa’s deadliest weapon. Ifalna had confirmed as much.

A weapon. A decorated General. To Aeris, he was only a man, an old friend, the one who had kissed her, who had seen her at her worst, who had nurtured hopes with her and broken her heart.

The one who had saved her and Ifalna from ShinRa.

Perhaps he had tried to save himself… but it had been too late. ShinRa’s shackles weren’t only physical. Aeris could only imagine what a man with so much power could do if he finally snapped. ShinRa had that effect on its wards – she felt she was always walking a tightrope between survival and utter wild rage. Tifa was the same – she stepped off the tightrope a lot more often than Aeris did, but she was still only human. The extent of her rage was limited to broken bottles, broken knuckles, screams resounding behind closed doors.

Between two girls and a honed weapon, of course the outcome of their emotional baggage had different proportions. If Sephiroth had stepped off his own tightrope, it was no wonder that he might’ve unleashed unholy terror.

She poured herself a drink on the night of Sephiroth’s birthday. He had never liked celebrating it, but Ifalna had made a point to bake cakes for him, and Aeris had kept up the tradition when they were together. Now, instead of kneading cake mix alongside her mother, Aeris poured cookie-flavoured Bailey’s into a glass of milk.

It smelled nice. It was close enough.

Tseng had to knock when she didn’t come to meet him. She ignored him. He came in, the bell jingling as the door opened, polished shoes knocking quietly along the floorboards as he approached her.

“Twenty-five,” she said. “He would’ve been twenty-five.”

Tseng sat down on the barstool next to her with a sigh. He reached over the bar, took out a glass for himself, knocked it down on the counter next to hers. She stared while he took the carton of milk and the smart black Bailey’s bottle, pouring himself the same drink.

“He’ll never be twenty-five,” Aeris muttered. 

“I hope the owner’s sleeping,” Tseng said. “Not sure she’d appreciate anyone honouring the man who burned down her hometown in her own pub.”

Aeris glared over at him. He looked tired. For once, he had left behind his cool work persona. He stared down at his drink, swirling it, looking grave.

“Is it really true, then? Tifa’s story?” Aeris asked him quietly. “And don’t lie to me this time, Tseng. You know I’ll keep it to myself.”

He pondered this for a moment, slowly rolling the butt of his glass against the counter.

“It’s true,” he said. “Sephiroth was wrapped up in dangerous company secrets. When he found out about them, he turned on ShinRa and anyone who got in his way.” He drank. “It was a clusterfuck. ShinRa didn’t know what they were dealing with.”

Aeris scoffed humourlessly and said, “I don’t think they ever do.”

She gulped down the sweet drink and then refilled both their glasses. For the first time in a long time, the silence felt comfortable as they sat side by side.

“How… did he die?” she asked.

Tseng looked over at her. “Fell into hyper-concentrated Mako.”

She frowned at her full glass, horrified, as though the thick white liquid was the Mako that had become Sephiroth’s grave.

“Was it painful?” she muttered.

“No, I don’t think so,” Tseng said kindly. “From what I hear, Mako immersion warps your mind, pulls you through your memories, makes you forget all about your physical body. Maybe he didn’t even feel it.”

Aeris shook her head. He was just being nice. Sephiroth had already told her that Mako immersion was physically uncomfortable as well as a mindfuck. To fall into the hyper-concentrated stuff that bubbled in the core of the reactor… she closed her eyes, breathing out. What a horrible way to die.

Tseng reached across the counter, placed a hand on Aeris’s. The warm weight of it was more than just comforting. It made her realise how touch-starved she had been. Proximity with Tifa was one thing – the grip of Tseng’s hand over her own was quite another.

“They have a memorial statue on the Plate,” Tseng told her. “I can place incense there for you when I get back up. If you’d like.”

She looked at that large weathered hand that engulfed her own. Thinking of Sephiroth only brought back bittersweet memories of months where she’d been blissfully content. She had never known just how good it could be to be physically intimate with someone she appreciated, how the lingering touches and the constant opportunity for contact was such a welcome privilege. To have the permission to sink into someone’s embrace at any moment, and for them to understand why, to connect with her on a deep level. The way he’d sought out her mouth, kissed her like he was just as amazed as her to be allowed such extravagantly personal contact.

To be close. Closer than anyone had ever gotten. 

She missed it horribly. Luna had been lovely, but the connection had not gone quite as deep. It was always the same story. Relationships with strangers, people who didn’t truly know her… they always felt so surface-level.

Tseng’s hand was warm, calloused, familiar.

She turned on her bar stool, reached for him. He let her wrap her arms around his shoulders and bury her nose in his hair. She breathed in his usual perfume of gun-smoke, tobacco, and the faint remains of whatever Cologne he’d put on at the beginning of the evening.

He placed a hand on her waist, hesitating. Then he drew her closer. She tightened her grip around his shoulders, shifting to the edge of her barstool. Their knees bumped as they adjusted, holding one another close.

She didn’t know why this grief brought up these cravings. Perhaps it had been the nature of the relationship, the echo of everything she could no longer have nor hope for. The way Tseng’s hand dragged up the back of her dress made her close her eyes, a shiver running through her bones.

Tseng’s long black hair smelled of such deliciously rich tobacco. She relaxed against him, his blazer crisp and clean under the bare skin of her arms.

“Aeris,” he muttered after a while.

Perhaps he meant to say it as a way of signalling that it was becoming inappropriate. But it didn’t sound like that. The way he said her name was more like a sigh of relief.

Still, it reminded her of where they were, how little she wanted Tifa to come down and see her hugging the spook that monitored them both so closely. She drew back, but not without grabbing his hand again and holding it hostage.

“You can’t die, OK?” she muttered. “You’re not allowed to die. Otherwise the only ones I’ll have left from that time would be Rude and Reno.”

She couldn’t see his expression as she had her gaze fixed on their joint hands. But she heard him give an infinitesimal scoff.

“I understand your grievance there,” he said.

“I’m serious,” she insisted. “Whatever’s happening with those Black Mist people – you have to be careful, OK?”

“I’m always careful, Aeris.”

His free hand came to her chin, lifted it, fingers ghosting over her jawline. When she looked into his eyes, they were dark and intense. Heart thudding, she breathed, daring herself to hold that gaze, paralyzed for a moment by what it might mean.

Then he blinked, eyes darting between hers as though remembering himself, his station, their uneven relationship. He offered her a small smile and drew back. 

“Don’t stay up too late,” he said as he reached into his blazer pocket. Pain meds and a stack of envelops came out as always. He placed them on the counter and added, “From the look of Tifa’s accounts, she soon won’t be needing the amount ShinRa’s offering her. Tell her to meet me next time so we can discuss the change of her situation.”

“O-OK,” Aeris stammered. She was being stupid – a stupid, naïve little girl, the one she thought she’d grown out of, with the cherry-red lip gloss and the inappropriate desires.

Except a lot of things had happened since then. It wasn’t simply a desire to dare him into something, to overturn the power balance between them. It was… deeper than that.

Far more dangerous than that.

She watched him leave, the bell tinkling on his way out. As always, he didn’t look back. She sighed, glanced at the pile of stuff he’d left for Tifa, then served herself another drink.

\- - -


	15. Chapter 15

_\- - -_

_Midgar_

_\- - -_

Aeris didn’t know at first, that the man Tifa had a crush on was from Corel.

He’d come in one day with a pack of armed junk scrappers that had Tifa discreetly slip on her combat gloves. It was usually bad news when people wore their armour into a bar. They’d ended up rowdy but generous customers, and Aeris had seen how Tifa scowled at them all except for the dark, handsome leader.

He was rugged and much older than her, but even Aeris couldn’t deny that there was a certain charm in the way he smiled at the barmaid, all politeness even as he rested his massive machine-gun arm on the table.

“Heard this was the best place for a drink downworld,” he growled in a gravelly, deep voice as Tifa brought them their umpteenth pitcher of beer. “Didn’t know it was managed by a single woman.”

“I’m not by myself,” Tifa quipped as she set down the pitcher. “I have two steel-toed boots and a state-of-the-art alarm system.”

The man chuckled. When Tifa retreated again, Aeris heard one of his cronies say, “No, no. You don’t wanna mess with that woman. Everyone says so.”

They came often and with a larger crowd every time. There was no mistaking that they were some kind of budding group, gang or something of the sort, and that the man with the gun-arm was the leader.

Aeris wondered whether to be worried when they started networking with the Black Mist gang. Tseng monitored Black Mist’s activity and told her to call him as soon as they brought bad business with them into the bar. But everyone seemed to treat the Loveless as a sanctuary where they brought only conversation and business. Tifa insisted she was a neutral party and operated on a strict no-nonsense policy which everyone had to respect. Due to everyone’s suspicion that Tifa had some serious weight behind her, there were never brawls nor shoot-outs. It was as though they all knew it was a privilege to have such a well-managed meeting spot. Tacitly, everyone knew that on a certain day of the week, you could find this or that gang at the Loveless – it had quickly become the pulse-point of the entire sector, so they had to be cordial because the alternative was bloody carnage.

Of course, this was a marvellous development for Tseng. Having his own agents working in a place like that meant he could count on them to have fresh information all the time. Who saw who; what conversations they overheard. 

But neither Aeris nor Tifa could say where the man with the gun-arm came from. He might be all charm towards Tifa, but he was secretive and extremely protective of his own fellows. Aeris had only mentioned to Tseng that there were new faces, but she hadn’t given more information than that. And he didn’t seem too concerned, either. He was still focussed on the ravages that Black Mist were making in the slum economy; the illegal gun trade and gambling they were involved in.

The man with the gun-arm became a sort of secret they were keeping from ShinRa, because they both _knew_ he must be bad news of some kind. But they diligently avoided giving Tseng defining details about him; the gun-arm being the most prominent of them. And somehow that made them both warm up to the strange man, like they finally had a bit of intel of their own that they weren’t sharing. A bit of power at last.

Of course, the man with the gun-arm represented more to them than simply intel.

“Do you like him?” Aeris asked Tifa one night as the girls finished wiping down the bar. Tifa smirked.

“He’s an over-confident ass,” she said. “Acts like he has me in his pocket.”

“Well… you _do_ give him signals,” Aeris said. Tifa looked outraged.

“What? What _signals?”_

Aeris grinned. “Always serving him before the others? Always talking to him and ignoring the rest of his crowd?”

“Well he’s the biggest and loudest one there, isn’t he? He’s the leader!”

“Admit it,” Aeris teased. “You like him.” 

“But – I mean – well – he’s probably a hardened criminal,” Tifa spluttered.

“Well, there isn’t much choice down here, is there?” Aeris said pragmatically. “Everyone’s a criminal to some extent. You’re a criminal, technically, for owning this bar by corruption. And I’m a criminal too.”

“You?” Tifa snorted. “What for? Illegally growing flowers?”

“Probably,” Aeris laughed. “It’s not like I own the church, is it? If the authorities really wanted to be annoying, they’d come after me about trespassing.”

“That would just be tragic. Thrown into jail for managing to revive one patch of slum soil.” Tifa bumped her shoulders against Aeris’s. “Everyone knows that church is all yours. Just like this place is all mine. The specifics don’t matter.”

“Mmm,” Aeris purred, still teasing. “If the specifics don’t matter, then why aren’t you all over that guy?”

Tifa poked her in the side to make her double up, but Aeris still caught how pink her cheeks had gotten. There was definitely something there. And Aeris was glad to see it. Tifa deserved some more authentic friends – especially the kind who could bring in extra protection with them.

_\- - -_

Aeris’s eighteenth birthday was looming. Though it only roughly coincided with Tifa’s arrival in Midgar – which had been late February – she decided she’d still organise a party for both of them.

Usually she didn’t celebrate her birthday any further than just a slice of a cake at home, and whatever Elmyra had found for her. When she was on good terms with Tseng, she’d accept presents from him; when she wasn’t, he would have the presence of mind not to send her anything at all.

Not many people even knew what the date was. She decided she’d tell Tifa she was having a splash for the both of them if Tifa decided to get weird and shy about the idea of a party, but otherwise she’d keep it to herself.

She brought in as many flowers as she could, talked with those regulars who had become Tifa’s friends, as well as the people from the dojo. All of them were only too happy with the idea of making Tifa feel welcome when they had all appreciated her presence behind the bar all year long.

The day arrived. A table was set where everyone could place the presents they’d brought. Aeris sent Tifa on a provisions-gathering mission and promised she’d hold the fort. Once Tifa had gone, Aeris started contacting all those people she’d invited so the crowd would be there once Tifa returned.

Presents were piled up, bunting strung up, lights were turned off. When Tifa texted Aeris to tell her she was on her way back, everyone found a place to hide.

They all heard the jangle of keys, Tifa’s muttered _what the fuck_ as she arrived to a completely blacked out bar.

She opened the door and all hell broke loose. Everyone jumped out, yelling _Surprise!_ and _Congratulations!_ Her eyes widened as she read the bunting - _Happy First Year_ being the first layer, the second being _Best Barmaid,_ and _Lock My Heart Up_ somewhere up there. Tifa’s cheeks had gone bright red, her mouth agape. Aeris strode through the tables and gathered her up in a hug.

“Surprise!” she said. “I thought I’d do something for this place’s anniversary.”

“You – what did you – oh my gosh,” Tifa babbled, unable to get many more words out because she’d started crying, and everyone piled onto them. They were all being loud and cheerful, and someone turned on the music so that groups began to break away to dance. Tifa’s grip on Aeris told her that this ran deep, and didn’t only bring joy.

“Aeris,” she croaked, and Aeris pushed her hair out of her face, holding Tifa’s head in her hands.

“You’re amazing,” Aeris told her. “You deserve a much bigger party than this.”

Tifa shook her head. “I’m gonna need a minute,” she muttered. “I’m sorry.”

Guilt bloomed in Aeris’s chest as she realised perhaps this was too much, too soon. Sniffing and wiping her face, Tifa went around the bar where Bruce was serving drinks, and disappeared in the back. Aeris turned to Barret, who was sitting at a nearby table, a wide smile on his face.

“Too much?” she said, grimacing. 

Barret shook his head. “Get a few drinks in her and she’ll be just fine,” he said, his deep voice soothing as always.

He was right, of course. He and Tifa had come to know one another in the hours that Aeris didn’t spend at the bar – she suspected as much, seeing the gazes they exchanged when she did come in to help out. 

Once Tifa was back, Bruce poured her a whole glass of whisky which she downed in one go. Then she stood up on the counter and shouted, “Right! It might be my first year anniversary or whatever, but that doesn’t give you guys an excuse to trash my place. So behave yourselves! All right?”

Everyone cheered. And the party began.

There was no denying that downworlders knew how to party. Aeris had told them not to bring substances, but she knew there were things passing between hands and being dropped in the bathrooms. These crowds were friendly, but once they got drunk, they were difficult to manage. Thankfully she’d enrolled Barret’s help – he and his gang had promised to stay sober enough to help them in the late hours.

Tifa opened the presents that had been lain for her – mostly equipment, decorations, extravagant stemware and some rather inappropriate gifts that she chucked back in the faces of those who had placed them there. Barret and his gang took those inappropriate gifts - lingerie and Bee-girl outfits, mostly – and pulled them all onto the guys who had brought them, and they stayed like that, too drunk to care as they danced and threw themselves into drinking games while sporting ridiculous bee butts and glittery wings. Aeris had never attended such a raucous affair before, and she had to check in with Tifa several times to decide who would be next to get thrown out.

Gradually as the night wore on, the crowd thinned. It was early hours by the time Barret finally made his move. Aeris watched from her window nook where she was tucked up with hot chocolate, half hidden behind a group of card-playing, boozed-up dojo members.

He was leaning his elbows on the counter, wearing his lazy smile and giving Tifa that tender kind of look that only meant one thing. Tifa was wiping a beer glass, tipsy and rosy cheeked, laughing at something Barret had just said. Barret only had to lean closer for Tifa to understand his request, and she held his gaze, her smile turning shy. He chucked his thumb under her chin, then kissed her full on the mouth.

Aeris smiled up to her ears as she watched Tifa grab him, kiss him back, frowning as though she was giving in to a long-standing desire. Barret’s gang sent up a hoot of mock-outrage when they saw their leader kissing the barkeep, and he extended his good hand to give them all the middle finger, all the while keeping his mouth locked to Tifa’s.

After that, Tifa seemed a little eager to get everyone out of the place. Barret’s gang helped to usher the last of the drunks and overexcited punters out. Bruce had gone a while ago, Tifa clapping a generous bonus into his hand for putting up with the madness. It was only the girls, Barret and a few of his friends left in the bar towards the end.

“Go on,” his friends told their leader. “Go on! We’ll clean up.”

“And I’ll keep an eye on these guys,” Aeris added.

“You had better behave around Miss Aeris,” Barret rumbled at his fellows, who laughed and bowed to Aeris. She smiled and whipped at Barret and Tifa with her rag.

“Get going before I kick you out of the bar!”

Tifa was red-faced as she pulled Barret out to the stairs that led to her flat. The men helped Aeris straighten out the place, but she was tired, her ears buzzing with all the noise and loud voices that had filled the night. Eventually when there only remained the dishes and wiping-down to do, she bid them all goodnight and pushed them all out.

The door clicked shut. Finally, she was alone.

Sighing, she went to the sound system and lowered the music. Then she returned behind the bar, tiredly stacking glasses into the dishwasher.

Sounds were coming from upstairs. She heard the creak of wood, the unmistakeable sound of a deep voice groaning with pleasure, and Tifa’s voice ringing in the quiet night as she got rather more acquainted with the man she’d dragged into her room.

Aeris blushed as she listened. She was glad for her friend, glad that the night had been a success, that Tifa hadn’t been too mad at her for celebrating something that was also a cause of anguish.

One year since she’d arrived in Midgar.

One year since Nibelheim had burned.

It was the same reason why Aeris didn’t usually like to celebrate her birthday. It marked another year since… the train station. Another birthday that her mother didn’t get to witness.

This one was especially hard. Thankfully all the noise and ruckus and pushed her own miseries right out of her head. It was only now that she was alone that the thoughts returned, and she was too tired and tipsy to feel the full brunt of them.

Still. Hearing their progress up there only sent a further pang of loneliness through Aeris. She sidled over to the sound system, flicking through the vinyl collection that had grown substantially in the past few months. She needed something to help her get through these last clean-up efforts, so Tifa could come down to a nice spotless bar tomorrow morning. (And something that would mask just how much Tifa was enjoying herself up there, because frankly the girl was loud.)

Aeris’s fingers met crinkly wrapping paper.

One of the vinyls was wrapped up, with a bow and card attached in the corner.

Frowning, Aeris plucked off the card and turned it around. Black ink spelt the words, _Stole this from our evidence room. It’s not in circulation any more so, as much as I’d like to keep it, you’d better have it. Keep it quiet, it’s rare. Happy birthday. – Tseng._

Heart pounding, Aeris ripped off the wrapping. A blue vinyl cover emerged, achingly familiar.

She crumpled the paper up in her fist, her throat growing tight as she looked at the cover. A father chucked up a tiny toddler, who was laughing. Above them floated the title, _Hang on little tomato!_

There hadn’t been many records in the communal quarters’ living area. This one had been Ifalna’s favourite. She’d put it on loop, dancing with Aeris teetering on the tops of her feet, whirling her around in the air just like the toddler on the cover.

For all the mindless joy of the evening, just the sight of this vinyl was enough to bring it all crashing onto her, all the things she’d tried to avoid thinking about. She wanted to put it on, but she knew she’d cry her eyes out if she did.

Oh, bugger it. It was late, she’d be going to bed soon. And she hadn’t heard this record in… over ten years.

She dimmed the lights, placed the glossy black vinyl in the turntable, pulled the stylus into place. The sound crackled, and the first sweep of violins brushed right through her body.

She closed her eyes, tilting back her head. It was an over-dramatic piece, something that belonged in a dance hall where crowds of ballroom dancers twirled around one another. In the communal quarters, they had pushed aside the tables and made their own dance floor.

Her feet moved by themselves, taking her on slow spins as she swayed to the beat. Her hands came up to unwind her braid, eyes still closed, imagining that perhaps somewhere, somehow… Ifalna could see her, could hear her.

The singer crooned something about falling stars sparkling through stormclouds, and Aeris lifted her arms and danced.

_\- - -_

Tseng had come on a tip-off. His investigations into the recent movements of the Corel criminals had brought him information about a man with the gun-arm who had reason to foment insurrection. He’d been sighted at the Loveless several times.

Tseng couldn’t be angry that Aeris hadn’t told him. He hadn’t exactly trained her on how to observe, how to deliver reports, what to look out for.

The man with the gun-arm was in there tonight; Tseng had seen him enter for the party that the girls had organised. It had been a chaotic deal, and Tseng had held himself nearby, expecting it to turn ugly. What madness was this, that Aeris had thought to bring all these known criminals together under the same roof – but they had picked good bouncers among the crowd, including the Corel man himself, and it hadn’t gone too badly at all.

Tseng couldn’t bring himself to break it up. Not when it was Aeris’s birthday. When the Corel man left, he told himself he’d follow. Until then, he waited.

The Corel man had not left.

Apparently Tifa Lockhart had a taste for fellow inhabitants of ravaged ghost towns. It had to be a sign that the girls knew who the man was, or that Tifa herself had gotten close enough to this man to admit her own past. Share their pain together.

It was going to be a rough after-party for all involved if that was the case.

Tseng wasn’t looking forward to it. He’d come to respect Tifa quite a lot. And then, while he smoked and leaned against the railings… Aeris had drifted to the vinyl stack and found his gift.

His cigarette was burning itself up now as he watched her dance. She was wearing a long flowy dress, and it spun beautifully around her as she twirled in the grubby slum pub. Even in the dim lights she had left, even with the beer-stained tables pushed against the walls and the haphazard pile of glasses that teetered dangerously on the counter, she managed to light up the place like it was a palace.

He had never seen her dance like that. Not since she was a kid. She was completely unselfconscious, her movements loose and languid. She spun around and around herself, throwing out her arms before gathering them again, hugging herself as she tilted her face into the lights to reveal a drawn, concentrated expression. Every now and then she reached out a hand to the ghosts she danced with, and Tseng knew very well who she was thinking of.

He’d danced with Ifalna to this album. She’d forced him to – she’d taught him the steps. He remembered how she turned back into the woman she must’ve been before captivity, when she danced. All that flowing hair, those red cheeks, the way she’d pull him into it and lead him like she’d done it all her life.

Gone. She was gone. It had been over a decade and it still hit him sometimes. She should be in that room – the music called to her, summoned her, but she was not there. She would never be there again.

A sprinkling of harp notes brought the song to an end, and Aeris stood panting in the centre of the room. The ponderous notes of a clarinet announced the next one, and he saw her smile a tremulous, fragile smile.

The dragging beat pulled her feet into a shuffling dance, and she wiped at tables as she moved through the room, straightened chairs, gathered up bottles from the floor.

When the lyrics came, she slowed, staring sightlessly ahead. She still swayed but the expression on her face was heartbreaking.

_The sun has left and forgotten me_

_It’s dark, I cannot see_

_Why does this rain pour down, I’m gonna drowwwn…_

The song was cheeky and irreverent in its tone, the lyrics sad but overdramatic, meant for cheering up rather than wallowing. Tseng expected to hear Ifalna’s voice singing over it as she always did; it was strange for the singer’s voice to stand alone in that room.

_Somebody told me, I don’t know who…_

_Whenever you are sad and blue_

_And you’re feeling all alone and left behind_

_Just take a look inside you and you’ll find…_

Aeris hugged herself as she swayed, surely hearing the same ghostly echo that Tseng was. She looked as lonely as he felt. Even moreso, perhaps.

He flicked his cigarette to the packed earth behind him, strode to the door. Opened it.

The bell tinkled, but the music swallowed the sound. Aeris didn’t hear him, engrossed as she was in the music as he came up behind her.

_You gotta hold on, hold on through the night_

_Hang on, things will be all right…_

He brushed his knuckles against her bare shoulder. She tensed, turned around to face him. She seemed to have been expecting him, because she hardly looked surprised to see him there.

One hand lighted on her waist – the other plucked hers away so that they could dance. A tired smile appeared on her face as she let him manipulate her until they were dancing, or shuffling rather, turning slowly on the sticky floorboards of the Loveless.

_If you start to cry, look up to the sky_

_Something’s coming up ahead_

_To turn your tears to dew instead…_

“You and your corny birthday presents,” Aeris mumbled against his shoulder. Tseng grinned and held her closer. Her thighs brushed his as they turned slowly, and then she kicked off her shoes and placed her feet on his.

“Keep off the ends,” he said. “Those are brand new.”

“I could give a toss,” she retorted as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He held her around the waist, eyes closed, grinning into her hair as he shuffled with her full weight on either foot. 

_And so I hold onto this advice_

_When change is hard and not so nice_

_If you listen to your heart the whole night through_

_Your sunny someday will come one day soon… to you._

It was corny as all hell, but Tseng’s throat was growing tight as he held onto her. He could feel her chest heaving against his as she breathed shallow breaths, trying not to let him see that she was upset. He’d never held her so close – she was flush against him, her thighs moving with his as he guided their steps, the warm length of her body relaxed against his.

It was not professional. Not in the slightest.

The mood devolved as the chords of a guitar announced one of the more contemplative songs. Loneliness throbbed through them both, and there was no cure for it except this closeness, her body heat, her breath against his neck. Goosebumps spread over him as she clung closer still, her hips against his, surely aware of the intimacy of the gesture.

If he kept her as close as this, she would feel his appreciation of it – and that, _that_ was unacceptable.

He twirled her away from him as the song’s refrain swept through the room. She spun around, her dress lifting around her in that beautiful sweeping motion. When she came back, her fingers caught his black lapels, and she held him close again, not letting him get away from her a second time.

His hands found her slim waist, dug into its soft curves as he checked what lurched through him. They both knew what her intention was, and that he would not allow it. They both played with this boundary, her pushing, him resisting. As they turned around and around, slow as ever, their mouths were parted, their faces leaning closer, both staring at the other’s lips as though summoning them closer.

 _No,_ Tseng reminded himself as the mindless moment stretched on. _She is your ward. She’s young, lonely, doesn’t know what she’s doing. Don’t let this happen. Do not let her get closer than this -_

 _Why not,_ his body insisted recklessly. _Why not?_

They both had jagged edges from the places where they had broken, and they fit together so very well. 

“Aeris,” Tseng sighed.

It was all he had the time to say before she kissed him. She was frowning, her lips glazed and salty with tears, her grip desperate as she held onto his lapels. This was not the kiss of a teenager who was playing an adult’s game. This was the kiss of a woman who knew exactly what she asking for.

He should’ve pulled away.

He didn’t.

He cupped her face, deepened the kiss, tasted her. Sweet cookie-flavoured Bailey’s on her tongue. Now that she had him he had no idea how he could possibly get out of this, her lips, her hungry insistence, her breaths hot against his mouth as she panted.

The backs of his thighs hit a table. Aeris was no longer pretending to dance as she came against him, pressed her thigh between his and felt his blatant arousal lying rigid beneath his trousers. 

He pushed against her until she was the one slammed up against a table. Both hands slapped down on the surfaced at either side of her to keep them from wandering elsewhere. He finally broke the kiss and tried to catch his breath.

“No?” she asked.

“No,” he agreed.

He did not move away. Aeris looked up at him, her red-rimmed eyes boring into his. Her thigh came between his again, brushed his erection through the fabric, the contact so vivid and sudden that his mind completely blanked out.

Gods, she was staring straight at him. Her awareness was cuttingly sharp.

“Are you sure that’s a… very hard no?” she teased. 

“You’re drunk,” he said.

“No I’m not.”

“It’s almost 5am and you’ve been celebrating all night with trashed slummers,” Tseng said. “You’re drunk.”

Finally, finally, he managed to step away. He straightened his shirt, his blazer. Tried to appear nonplussed and disapproving, though that was difficult when his lips still stung from where she’d bit them, and his cock strained against his trousers.

“When the man upstairs comes out, I want you to give me a call,” he said.

To say Aeris looked wounded would’ve been an understatement.

“You came in here to tell me that?” she mumbled.

“Yes, I did,” Tseng said curtly.

“Fine,” she bit out. “I will, then.”

He had no idea what else to say. He wanted her so much that it hurt.

He turned around and left, feeling her eyes on him all the way to the door.

He had kissed her back. She knew now that all she had to do was insist, and he caved.

Except he could not let that happen again.

He _would not._

_\- - -_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO. Is this chapter the most self-indulgent thing I've written thus far? Probably. Did I really bring back songfic in the year 2021? YEAH BUT LISTEN. This entire chapter spawned from all the dancing I did in my damn living room during the French confinements of 2020 and it has been banging in my brain to come out ever since. Call me a sap if you want, I just really love Pink Martini and it's their album now, that's just how it is!!  
> Album featured in this chapter is "Hang on little tomato" by Pink Martini, the order of songs in chapter is:  
> \- Let's never stop falling in love (Aeris dancing alone) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhzJyYeMgA4  
> \- Hang on little tomato (the one they dance to) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7o2nC7ex-Q  
> \- Aspettami (while they're makin' out) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTgq7ykD59c  
> \- Una notte a Napoli (just an honourable mention because it's rad) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qMYif4PeHI


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